Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this legislation.

While I wish to pay particular attention to one or two provisions, I also wish to reiterate or expand a little on some points made by other speakers. Obviously, this legislation involves a considerable amount of necessary tidying up. Society changes and legislation obviously should change to reflect this. Most people would accept that knowing the identity of one's parents is important and this is part of what is required in respect of the right to know. While clearly this would also be addressed under adoption legislation, this would be absolutely essential to it. A balance of rights exists in respect of having, for example, the name of the biological father on the birth certificate, which I welcome. However, the key issue is always the right of the child and whereas adults can worry about current issues, the key issue here concerns future events and it is absolutely correct that this should be part of this legislation. I welcome a number of other provisions and as for mandatory registration, there are all sorts of issues in addition to the right to know. I believe there are custody issues that become important later on and it is better to have the facts regarding a child's heritage set out at the earliest possible stage and obviously, this is the first item of public information that is available to do this.

Other speakers have noted there are some rare situations that are highly sensitive and which must be dealt with accordingly. As Deputy Ó Snodaigh noted, for example, the scenario in which both parents happen to be under age must be thought out. Members are dealing with scenarios affecting people in the future, not about events that have happened and, consequently, people could find themselves in a situation in which a criminal prosecution almost would be mandatory, once a name went onto a birth certificate, particularly with a baby being born to an under-age mother where the father also is under age. It is important to flag such scenarios and to make the point that they must be thought out, rather than waiting until a set of circumstances arises and then attempting to deal with it retrospectively, which always is the most unsatisfactory situation.

As for marriages and civil partnerships in the context of marriages of convenience, given the matchmaking that went on in 19th-century Ireland and given that civil registration was part of the landscape from 1864 onwards with regard to most life events, it is ironic that Members in the 21st century are considering this as an issue, because marriages of conveniences certainly were routine in the 19th century. This provision is bringing matters into line with other countries and I can understand why it is included in this legislation. However, Members would not be doing their job unless they made the point that there is a possibility of mistakes or of heavy-handedness, as already has been alluded to by Deputy O'Dea, and unless they were to ask for this provision to be fleshed out to a greater extent. For example, if this will involve an appeal to the courts, one must ask about a person's ability to fund such an appeal, because this will be a civil case rather than a criminal case. Timelines and such things would become quite an issue if it was going to be a protracted process. Consequently, Members must be extremely careful in this regard. It is absolutely correct that this provision be included but it is a question of how it will be handled. Those cases that are genuine but which could perhaps be misinterpreted by an individual are the ones that will cause problems. I am referring to cases on the fringes rather than it being a central issue. There sometimes is a disproportionate relationship within marriages of convenience and as one also can find a vulnerable person within such a relationship, there can be other social consequences.

On the transfer of data, a provision in the legislation allows the Minister to reduce the cost of certificates if the transfer is between Departments. However, I met a group of people last week who were involved in the mother and baby homes and they made the point that were a number of them to carry out research, it would be really important for them to have the scope to so do and for the cost not to be prohibitive. It can be extremely expensive to conduct such research and I believe situations will arise outside the work of Departments that must be considered from the perspective of providing relief. For example, I understand the research carried by Catherine Corless cost approximately €3,000. She was obliged to research each birth in the institution concerned and did the State a great deal of service. Others should not be prohibited and a mechanism should be put in place whereby provision could be made for situations with a social dividend, even if it was a retrospective provision. It will be important to give consideration to such a measure.

The main aspect of this legislation with which I wish to deal probably is the one to which no one has alluded. It is in section 27 of the Bill and is in respect of the transfer of data in the case of electronic records that people will be able to search online. There has been something of a debacle in this area. My primary interest is in genealogical research and given that the census records for the 19th century have not survived, census substitutes become all the more important. Consequently, resources such as the General Register Office, GRO, records are extremely important and we should not fall out of line with Northern Ireland, which has placed its indices online and one can apply for them. One can cut down the cost by narrowing down one's search and it is extremely important to have good indices online. Not long ago, the Minister for Social Protection helped to launch the publication of the indices to the GRO online on the irishgenealogy.iewebsite, which is housed within the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. However, an issue then arose with the Data Protection Commissioner, who insisted that the records be taken down. They have not yet been put back up and I understand some dialogue is under way between the Departments. It may well be dependent on this legislation but I am unsure about that. However, the point is the aforementioned records actually are online, up to 1958, on the website of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In an amazing irony, one can go outside the country to do the research and I am unsure whether people always understand this. It is possible to narrow down one's search. If, for example, one is researching a very popular name such as Patrick Murphy, 100 Patrick Murphys may have been born in the year 1901 and if one pays €4 for each record, it becomes a very expensive proposition. However, this can be narrowed down by having good indices in which, for example, the mother's name is included. While they were not included until the 1920s, if the maiden name of the mother is included, it can narrow down one's search considerably. The legislation has not specified precisely what is meant by the indices. Will they be limited to the quarter or will the date of birth be provided? Will the mother's name be given? Such details are quite important if people are to be encouraged to research their family history. It is a highly topical pastime at present and I do not believe it will subside.

There is quite a difference in the records one can search online. This legislation seems to create a difference between the records one can search online and those one can get on walking into that awful building in Werburgh Street that I am embarrassed to call our research facility. On picking up one of the large ledgers, getting the index and finding the date one wants, one can research a record right up to last year but if one searches the records electronically, a restriction applies in respect of records that are registered more than 100 years, 75 years and 50 years in the case of a birth, a marriage and death, respectively. We must recognise that in the future most people will get their information online rather than by way of a hard copy. We will have to return to that aspect in respect of this legislation.

The General Register Office, GRO must recognise that part of its function is to assist in research or to provide for research in a more meaningful way. One is only allowed to get three or four records per day in the research facility in Werburgh Street. It is extraordinary that there is such a limit on the number of records one can get. It is related to the allocation of scare resources in terms of the number people who are available and working in that office.

During the debate on the freedom of information legislation, I raised a number of issues, including the issue of whether these are public or private records. I believe these to be public records. There is a good reason they should be public records. There were public records from 1864 onwards.

In the case of marriages, such registrations were to protect against people committing bigamy. In the case of births, people have researched where they have been in a mother and baby home, an industrial school or an orphanage. The period of 100 years applying to those records is way too long in such cases. In the case of a death, it may be important to research what ailments presented in a particular family. There can be various reasons to support that these need to be public records. I withdrew an amendment I have had tabled to the Freedom of Information Bill having been given an assurance in this respect, and I understand the GRO got legal advice to be sure that this was the case. I was told that the general records of the GRO, that is the register of births and so forth, are public documents, which are subject to freedom of information legislation and readily accessible, and that one can check these documents without recourse to legislation. I want that confirmed in regard to this legislation. I want the Minister of State when he concluding the debate to confirm that these are public records.

The difficulty in terms of records being available online under a different regime compared to the records that are available on walking into the records office is an important paradox. It may be possible to produce those records if some safeguards were put in place. I understand the need for safeguards in terms of people's personal information. I have raised similar issues in a different context in recent weeks. A distinction could be made between providing a certified copy and a research copy to ensure that the document could not be used as a official document and that distinction would allow for research to be done. There are ways of dealing with this and allowing for what has become not only an important pastime but an important industry. An international company located on the Quays currently employs 80 people. Having regard to the size of the Irish diaspora, there is a prospect of many people being employed in both the public and private sector in the genealogy area.

It is important that Northern Ireland and the Republic operate pretty much around the same regime. If one goes onto the website of the General Register Office Northern Ireland, GRONI, one can get indexes online. One pays for the record in the same way as one pays for the record here and it is posted to the person. I acknowledge a limit applies in respect of the Northern Ireland website in the same way as has been provided for in this legislation. The Minister of State might address the reason the electronic format and the hard-copy format are treated differently. I can understand if that is a holding situation where something needs to be thought through because different arrangements apply in different countries.

I spoke about the awful office in Werburgh Street, which was a former labour exchange. I gather it was renovated during the Irish Presidency of the EU, but the facility is not an acceptable. A campaign was launched when the research room was located in Lombard Street. The facility there was tiny and it was difficult to do research in it. Some of the ledgers were bigger than the space available to go through them. The process is that one looks through the ledger and then requests the record. The facility moved to the Irish Life Mall and the space there was satisfactory. It was to be fitted out with an online facility but it then became too expensive and turned out to be a victim of the cutbacks. The only place that could then be found for the facility was the awful building in Werbugh Street. Visitors come to this country to research their family history and that is one of the places we expect them to go. It is badly signposted. There are only one or two sockets available in the room and one cannot even recharge a laptop. The toilet facilities are inadequate. It is not good enough. The fact that there is a limit on the number of certificates one can get in a day limits even professionals who are researching on behalf of others. Something needs to be done about that. We are limiting rather than allowing the research to happen.

A radical programme was initiated in 2000 and a great deal of money was invested in setting up the system online. The online system is available for current records but the historical records are not available to the public. Some of the records are available online and I do not understand why people cannot work with the records that are available and work on those records to be done incrementally. It would be valuable to have the records in a digitised format available for research, even if they are the records to which access is restricted in terms of 50 years, 75 years and 100 years. A sizeable number of those documents are online.

People of Irish heritage have a great affinity with this country. We should foster and encourage that. The way to do it is to permit people to dip their toe in the water and find some connection to Ireland. For many people, the GRO records are that connection but we must make the process easier, bearing in mind that a small fortune has been spent on the online system, involving a great deal of work. Some 27 million index records were transferred from a manual system to a comprehensive database of index records and 5 million register pages were scanned. That process is not complete in respect of all the records but a large amount of the work is complete. Many people feel a degree of frustration about the GRO having a digitised copy and that digitised copy not being available to the general public and to professional researchers.

This area probably has not been the main area on which people have wanted to focus. It is an area of particular interest to me. I was made special rapporteur on a committee on which both the Minister of State and I served.

I am special rapporteur of the committee on which the Minister of State served. We held hearings last year and at the beginning of this year and I am working on finalising the report. There are great opportunities in the area, but our legislation must be capable of delivering an easier, simplified means of searching. People will no longer trawl through piles of paper if they can get something online. We must get our heads right regarding where we are going with this. Could the Minister of State address why there is a difference between what one can get electronically and by visiting the office? I welcome many of the provisions in the legislation. There will be the possibility of amendments, and I am considering some. There is a sensitivity about the handling of particular elements, some of which I have drawn attention to. In general, the legislation is welcome.

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