by Joseph P. Walshe, for decades the top civil servant in the Irish Department of External Affairs that: Thus, while sometimes encouraging the use of the name Éire even in English, de Valera's government insisted at other times on the use of the name Ireland. The United Kingdom disputed Irish adoption of the name "Ireland" (below). De Valera's decision to generally use the name Éire was sometimes severely criticised as a poor choice of name. Some argued that it was confusing. Others said the name Éire might strengthen the claim of the government of Northern Ireland to the ancient name of Ulster for their state. However, the name Éire (generally appearing as Eire in English) quickly became widely accepted in English. Nevertheless, this only fuelled more criticism of the name, as once free in the English language, it evolved – leading to what opposition politicians stated were "sneering titles such as Eirish". These criticisms were aired at length in the Oireachtas when the Republic of Ireland Act was being debated. De Valera's use of the name Éire as well as the wording of Article 4 were sharply criticised. The Taoiseach of the day, John A. Costello said "that tremendous confusion ha[d] been caused by the use of that word Éire in Article 4. By a misuse by malicious people of that word, Éire, they have identified it with the Twenty-Six Counties and not with the State that was set up under this Constitution of 1937." Despite these criticisms, de Valera initially called for the proposed Irish description of the state, Poblacht na h-Éireann to also be inserted into the English text of the Act in the same way both the Irish and English names of the state are used in Article 4. However, de Valera subsequently retreated from this position and in what may be seen as an implicit acceptance of the criticisms made of the wording of Article 4 itself, de Valera accepted that it was better not to also use the Irish description in the English text. Despite not changing the name, when the Republic of Ireland Act was passed, the name Éire quickly fell into disuse (except in the Irish language). However the name continues to linger on, particularly in the United Kingdom. The Constitution review group's 1967 report discusses Article 4: Historically, "Eire" was commonly used as a state-name by a variety of organisations. For example,