John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

I will inquire into the intentions of the British National Archives regarding this matter and find out what it has done. It is fair to say that prior to the development of modern technology, there was a very strong case for the return to Ireland of at least some of the records of the chief secretary's office now held in the British National Archives at Kew, although this was always likely to have been resisted by the British authorities, mainly because they would have felt it would set a precedent setting in train requests for the return of records from many other British colonies that obtained independence in the mid-20th century. If I may put it as kindly as possible, there may have been what I would describe as a run on the cultural bank.

It is increasingly the case that archival institutions across the world are publishing their most important holdings in digital format, either on CD-ROM or on the Internet. Once this is done, the location of original archives will be of very little importance to historians and other researchers. However, I appreciate Deputy Catherine Murphy's point that it is important that records be made available in the format she specified so people can have access to them. I will inquire whether this has been done in respect of the documents in question and, if not, when it will be done and how long it will take.

See this speech in context