MINISTER John Gormley confirmed this week that he will shortly introduce legislation which will confirm the names Dingle and Daingean Uí Chúis for the West Kerry capital.

In October 2006 over 1,000 people voted in a plebiscite to change the official name of the town from An Daingean to the bi-lingual names Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis with more than 90 per cent of voters in favour of the change.

Last year the Minister proposed that the opportunity would be taken in legislation to provide that Daingean Uí Chúis should be the official name of the town of An Daingean in the Irish language with Dingle being the official name of the town in the English language.

Under the proposed legislation the requirements of road traffic regulations regarding signage in the Gaeltacht will not be affected i.e. places within the Gaeltacht will continue to be shown in Irish only.

Senator Joe O'Toole met with Minister Gormley and his officials last Wednesday and the long drawn out issue of the name change was raised.

"The Minister and his officials confirmed to me that the legislation to effect the name change is contained in the Bill relating to the Dublin mayoral election. He said it will be brought before the Cabinet in the next couple of weeks. He said it would be published shortly after that so it's possible that the Bill will be published before Christmas and then dealt with in the houses of the Oireachtas in the spring. The Dublin mayoral election will be held in June so, obviously, the legislation surrounding that, which also contains the Dingle/Daingean Uí Chúis legislation, will have to be published before the election, "Senator O'Toole told The Kerryman.

Meanwhile, Dingle Business Chamber, which has supported the name change campaign, has received a letter from the Department of Environment echoeing the Senator O'Toole's assessment of the situation.

Prior to the October 2006 plebiscite the name Dingle was removed from all council roadsigns in Kerry. The move angered local business interests who say that many tourists cannot find their way to the town because of the absence of directional signage that they can understand.

A compromise of sorts was found when signage was erected welcoming people to ' The Dingle Peninsula'. Meanwhile, the name Dingle continues to be painted clandestinely on the An Daingean roadsigns at key locations around the county.