It's been a long wait, given that we have more road per head than anybody else in Europe. But, Brian Byrne reports, we have at last been mapped
Those of us who regularly drive cars abroad with on-board satellite navigation systems often complain about "herself behind the dashboard" getting us lost. In truth, it's generally our own fault, because we don't live with her in our daily driving lives in Ireland, so to speak, and aren't used to her ways.
But our biggest complaint at home is why it has taken so long to get a full sat-nav operation here? Well, it seems that we nearly have.
The biggest player in the provision of the digital DVD databases which are the core of such systems says it's on track to have the whole country digitised by the end of this year.
Navteq, a Chicago-based company which has its roots in California's Silicon Valley as recently as 1985, can't actually make such promises because it's now a public company, but the end-2005 forecast made by its representatives here 18 months ago will be achieved, a spokesperson said this week.
Ireland is possibly the last west European country to get its own full system. The reason is largely economic, but it's also to do with the sheer difficulty of the logistics.
The fact is, in continental Europe with its long distances, connected countries and many major cities, sat-nav systems are extremely useful - especially because large numbers of people find themselves regularly driving in unfamiliar places.
In some countries, such as Germany, there is a high level of forested environment, so local landmarks aren't always easy to see. So an electronic navigator is almost an essential companion for non-locals.
Britain, too, has greater distances and a bewildering number of oddly-named villages and towns, and a population more than 13 times our own.
So, in economic terms, there's a bigger market for sat-nav systems in almost every other country. Navteq has concentrated on locations based on demand from its own automotive customers, so the relatively small Irish demand has left us down the list.
In a way we're lucky that Navteq did get going on our case properly a few years ago, because eastern Europe demand is becoming very significant and those countries are a new priority.
There were significant logistical difficulties in digitally mapping Ireland fully. Not least because we have more length of road per head than almost any other EU country, thanks to the fact that the basic road network was in place before the Famine and mass emigration halved our population.
The mapping process required two elements. The major built-up areas for the Navteq Irish database are based on specially commissioned aerial photography, while the rural areas required teams of field workers driving around literally every road and boreen with a GPS receiver and marking, with the help of a computer, the trace of the road line.
Subsequently, using the GeoDirectory developed by the Ordnance Survey and An Post, every street name, and each one of the 1.5 million commercial and residential buildings in the state is being added to the database. The issue was complicated by the fact that Ireland's townland system has more than 50,000 defined localities - Britain has only 25,000.
After consultation with the Department of Transport, road numbers have been added. There's also a "land use" element to the database, which provides such details as parks, industrial estates, business campuses and golf courses.
The work has been done over the past few years from a Navteq dedicated office in Newry. By the end of the year, when the process is completed, it will have taken some 15 "man-years" to produce the DVD.
IT'S been a long wait, with no visible sign of progress. So far, detailed sat-nav information seemed to be confined to Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway and the main roads between them. Outside these "pales" the indicator on the screen has mostly had us wandering in uncharted territory.
However Navteq has been updating systems regularly as its Irish database improves. Each time I drive a new car with a navigation system lately, I'm noticing significantly more information. Even my own cul-de-sac in my home village is now marked - not named, though.
Somehow, in 38 years, we never got around to giving the local authority a name for our little road. So, if I see a northern-registered car parked outside with a couple and their laptop inside, looking lost, I'll know Navteq has come to have another go.