Unhappy are those who publish atlases without paying the mapmaker.

The Automobile Association (AA) paid £20 million sterling (€31.49 million) to Britain's ordnance survey this week after its maps were used without licence as sources in more than 500 atlases and town-plans published by the motorists' club.

Could such a loss of commercial direction happen here, asked the Margin. Apparently not. A Department of Finance spokeswoman said the AA pays a "sum" to the Ordnance Survey to use the computer system on which it stores Irish maps.

This is not strictly a royalty, but the total received from users of the mappers' system was £4 million last year. So who says the State sector has a sleepy attitude to trade?