Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)

I thank the Minister. This is quite a challenge for the State as a large number of paper records exists. While I accept records are archived primarily for their legal admissibility, they have a significant heritage value. Professionals with both archiving and information technology skills are needed to decide which records are appropriate to maintain and a significant number of people with these skills would be required to service each State body. A perfect system is not available because the technology involved is being progressed all the time. Britain has instituted a location where records are stored, upgraded and maintained and it is a cost effective way to archive.

The Minister replied to a parliamentary question I tabled on Tuesday on this topic in the context of the decentralisation programme, which poses additional challenges. He stated a risk analysis is under way. Who is carrying it out? When is it likely to conclude? He also stated an individual had been appointed to the National Archives to work on the issue of best practice in this regard but the individual had resigned recently. Is one person sufficient to do this work? When will that report be available?

Computer systems have been revolutionised, even over the past 30 years, and the notion of storing large spools of records is laughable. The Minister must consider this in deciding in what format material should be maintained and the number of records to be held, which should be minimised so that only the most important records are archived. We are all guilty of information overload and, for example, many of us keep e-mails, which are not relevant. However, this is not only an IT issue but an archival issue in terms of which records are appropriate to archive. Will the Minister consider using one location for archiving? Given the experience in the local authority system where archivists are employed intermittently or are sometimes shared among several local authorities, there are not sufficient people with the necessary skills available to decide what needs to be stored and how it should be stored throughout the country.

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