Mr. Brian Donovan:

I would first like to reply to the question on digital records. The Deputy is absolutely right. Records created in the early stages of computerisation, when the first accounts packages were introduced in the late 1970s and the 1980s, have a huge range of associated problems. However, since we started bringing in standards for keeping modern records in the 1990s, I am pleased to say that those problems do not really exist for the long-term preservation of the information. We will be left with this problem for about 20 years and we will have to deal with that. However, the digitalisation of historic records is a different issue altogether. The standards that apply to the digitalisation of historic records are well known. We follow open-source standards for the images that are captured. We do not use proprietary software for this. It is a very good way to keep a surrogate copy. I say "surrogate copy" because the original record is more important. By having a surrogate digital copy, people can look at that and the original can be put in a proper archival environment, with proper temperature humidity controls. That is the ideal situation because like most archivists, we prefer not to look at the record at all because that damages it.

The Deputy also asked what this hub would look like. I am not talking about a hub as an institution. I am talking about an environment where we have free engagement with the records that might result in innovative models, businesses, volunteer groups and so on. There are certain basic things we need to do to facilitate that happening. We must have free access to the records that are available. We need to focus our attention on the limited Government funds to support the archives doing what they do, which is archival work. Let the private companies and volunteer groups come together to seek to publish them, while the funds are low. At the moment, what is happening is a misuse of funds because there are other ways of doing this. The hub is not a building or institution, but a collection of organisations which happen to share a common space, and interact and engage with each other, and develop innovation as a consequence of being geographic location together. That is not dissimilar to what happened with technology out in Silicon Valley. I do not wish to exaggerate, as there is not a pot of gold.

The Deputy also raised the issue of paying for indexes to public records. If the indexes are digitised and made available for free by a public institution, then that is one thing, but it is a different thing altogether if indexes are not even in existence to start and are created privately. I should say at this point that the GRO indexes are available on several sites online. They are available for free at familysearch.org, or behind a paywall on ancestry.com or on findmypast.ie. We have been told another version will be available from the GRO itself, and we look forward to that. I think the question is whether the public sector is fulfilling its public access remits, but not suddenly to hobble private organisations from trying to do good things as well, which can help support them. It is not an either/or question. It is not about paying for something or having it for free; it can be both. For example, we have a series of agreements with the National Archives whereby we digitise their records, index them, put them online and they are available commercially for a duration of time, before they later go online for free to everybody. That happens on the National Archives website and on our own. We also do stuff immediately for free on both websites. I want to open members' minds to a range of possibilities of how these things might look. I dislike the fact that we might end up with a Government decision that we will do everything one way only. That would preclude all the diversity and innovation that might take place among public organisations, voluntary groups and private companies.

Another question was about the diversity of records that could be digitised. We addressed this in the second point of our ideas on what should be done. Perhaps Ms Fitzsimmons might discuss this.