Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I should have declared a conflict of interest at the beginning, as I did on Tuesday, in that I have some shares in Eneclann. I wanted to put that on the record.

It is obviously a great improvement that there is one central location for the website, but is that advertised? People who do not know that is the official portal may not find it obvious to visit that site. Are there any proposals to separate that out or advertise it?

The project must be seen as an investment in terms of bringing in tourism. We did not select the title from a purely economic viewpoint. The value, however, has a number of different meanings. The reduced VAT rate that will generate tourism is comparable in that we can see it is an investment that will bring a return. At the same time the investment could be made in an entirely different way that would generate exactly the same thing but which may have a longer-term return on it. Perhaps the witnesses could say something about that.

I know the Catholic records are in the National Library but I found them difficult to go through. One must get used to the different patterns of writing and some of them are in Latin. Some of them were also kept in bad conditions, as one can see from the microfilms. What are the challenges in digitising those records? Is it about ownership or translating from that format to another?

As regards philanthropy, is there much capacity or is the prospect being over-hyped? The witnesses might tell us what part philanthropy plays in this regard.

As regards costs, I may have got it wrong about the Valuation Office's records. Will they go to the National Archives? One must pay to consult council books and maps there and one also pays with the GRO. I have never had a problem with paying because I did not want to consult 25 different Paddy O'Briens, but it can be expensive when one goes about it that way. It is incredibly useful to be able to search for material online.

When one considers the cost of travelling, a modest charge is not objectionable. A point was made about the IP address. A different way of approaching it would be for people to turn up in person to view material in the National Archives or the National Library. I would be interested to hear what the witnesses have to say about that. We are all interested in this topic, not just personally but in how we can see a timely progression. The witnesses have been at it a lot longer than most of us.