Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. This has been a very interesting session.

It was deliberate that the committee invited such a diverse range of people to attend, who while they do not make up an exhaustive list of the groups involved in this area give us more or less a taste of the various strands that will provide for a plan that will include all of the records that are available. In other countries many of the records we are discussing might not be needed by someone searching for their family history because the census would be there from the 19th century, but we do not have that. Census substitutes have become very important here. Some of these census substitutes are in the form of the railway records, the Guinness records and other work records. For example, local authorities will have staff records going far back into the 19th century. We could list a range of other similar bodies or organisations with records. The important point about doing this is to show the diversity of what is available. Many people think everything in the public records office was burnt in 1922, but that is not true at all.

I have worked out my family history and it was because of having to search for records sideways that I realised that these types of records are incredibly important. I drove Eibhlín Roche to distraction in my search for family history in connection with the Guinness records. I also had reason to drive Dr. Peter Rigney of the railway records nuts. I have searched both of these repositories. People speak about the emotional connection, but I had not realised until I searched how important it is to pin down place and what a difference this makes to an individual in how he or she relates to that place afterwards. Both the Guinness and the railway records helped me do that.

What we are trying to create for people is an easy path to do this. Gabriel Byrne was very critical about us always trying to get into the pockets of individuals, but it is not about that. Making the emotional connection for people is a different thing entirely. We must find ways of making this easy for people. It is all very well if people can get on a bus and go into town to the National Archives or whatever, but some people come from the other side of the world and have only two or three weeks to do their research, without knowing the landscape or where exactly to start looking. We need to take on the challenge of making this easier for people if we are going to reconnect the people who wish to do this. The range of repositories available will be important to doing that.

Many of my questions have already been answered. In regard to the Guinness records, I compliment the website initiative because it makes the records visible and demonstrates how important they are. On the Irish Railway records, mention was made of the voluntary effort on the cataloguing etc. so as to be able to pinpoint the relevant ledgers in the archive. Is there concern with regard to the preservation of the records? A concern was expressed regarding how they are handled. In searching for my records, I brought a camera with me and took photographs and that was allowed. Does taking photographs damage the record or is there a better way of dealing with this? It is important to maintain the integrity of the records.

The gazette published by the Irish Railway Records Society is interesting and brings out the value of the records, particularly at a time like now when we are entering a decade of commemorations of centenaries. The gazette report on the role of women in the railways during the First World War was incredibly interesting, as were many other reports covered in the gazette. Will the society representatives speak about the preservation of the records? I will leave it to Deputy Tuffy to ask about youth involvement. What would a European hub involve or what would it be like? Would it be a physical location or an online service? I accept that accessing records could be done on a pay per view or a free to view basis. However, is there a conflict in regard to records that were publicly produced, such as the indexes to the General Register Office, GRO, being available on a pay per view site? If the records have been publicly generated, one should not have to pay to view them. Is there an issue in that regard? I felt annoyed by that, but do not know whether I should have felt so annoyed. Is there a conflict in that regard?

I was looking at the figure for the population of Ireland in 1841, which was 8.1 million. The UK then had a population of 18 million and the population of New York was 350,000. This says it all - in the context of trying to put the records back together on that time. The records, as mentioned, are our window to the past. Clearly, we cannot tie all the information together and it will be fragmented. Finding ways of working together, whatever format is used, is the important task we need to undertake.