Mr. Steven Smyrl:

Senator van Turnhout mentioned the 1926 census. This is a particular bugbear. We fought long and hard during the debate on the Statistics Bill 2013 that the census should be allowed to be open less than 100 years later. If I am filling in a form these days there is a lot of information requested, so perhaps I might wonder if I want this to be opened in my lifetime. However, the information recorded in 1926 is virtually no different from that in 1911. It is all available in one form or another in civil records, so therefore all it does is to helpfully put it into a family group situation. Unfortunately, the Central Statistics Office was absolutely not in favour of the idea of the Bill having a 70 year cut-off, and it was raised back to 100 years at later Stages of the Bill. The Bill was enacted and that was set in stone, but that did not stop us trying to push all the time. The more years that have gone by since 1926, the easier it has been to suggest to people that maybe this information could be placed in the public domain because it is so much further back in the public psyche.

It will require legislative change to enable the census to be opened. Our colleagues in the Genealogical Society of Ireland put forward a Bill to try to open the census but it was not successful. What antagonised the CIGO is the fact that much effort was made to get the opening of the 1926 census put into the programme for Government, and then the Central Statistics Office dragged its heels. However, we established, through careful questioning under the Freedom of Information Act, that while the Statistics Act categorically denies any access to information per se, it nonetheless seems to allow, under a very oddly worded section, that the next of kin of an individual who has died have the right to apply for his information. I believe the committee has a copy of the letter which shows that was accepted by the CSO, but it went on to put a number of very odd obstacles in the way of why that information cannot be given. These include the fact that the information is stored away in boxes on pallets, and that there are no finding aids. That may be true to a degree but if there are instances where this information is available and should be made available under the Freedom of Information Act, then the individual applying for it should have some cause to try to find it.

Some work was done some years ago to organise the 1926 census returns so that the particular townlands or district electoral divisions could be located if necessary. That being the case, the CSO should have allowed the National Archives and Mr. Gorry to look for the information he was seeking. However, the CSO stated that the issue was with the National Archives, while the National Archives stated that the issue was with the CSO. We went back and forth until the Minister for Arts, Heritage the Gaeltacht announced that he was in favour of this. The Ombudsman, to whom several people had made complaints that they could not get access under the next of kin rule, rightly decided that this would be set to one side because the likelihood was that the census was going to be released. That has not been released and the CIGO has made representations to the Ombudsman again to reactivate these complaints and to make a finding one way or the other that the individuals have a right to this information.