Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am referring more to the historical ones. There was a 1911 census and nothing else until 1926, leaving a 15-year gap. With regard to the decade of centenaries, I have argued that these data could be made available. It is in the lap of the Minister because of the 100-year rule. Given the interest stirred up by the decade of centenaries and the major interest in one of the more successful digitisation projects dealing with pension records, more families will look to their own heritage and genealogy. Much is being done online now, which also helps. We can look at the number of hits on these sites from abroad to see how this is a tourism resource, aside from being an historical and genealogical resource for us here. The material can encourage people to come to Ireland and find out where this, that and the other happened. I will publish slightly changed legislation in the next week or so to try to encourage the Minister to bypass the 100-year rule. In the past it was suggested that the period should be 75 years and this was approved but then ignored by the Seanad.