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

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I dtús báire, nílimid i gcoinne an rúin seo agus táim go huile is go hiomlán taobh thiar de. Is céim loighciúil í. The transfer of the Courts Service's records is a logical step and one that should be replicated for other State bodies that have still not transferred documents that are 30 years old and older to the National Archives. What records have not been transferred, are not in the control of the National Archives and are not available to the public is an interesting question in itself.

The Courts Service welcomes the documents' transfer because it will open up space for the service and save it a few bob in storage and so on. No one is suggesting that the Courts Service should lose that funding, but taking charge of these documents and ensuring that they are available to the public will place an additional burden on the National Archives. As the Minister stated, there will be savings at some point in the future when the building works on the warehouse are completed. She says that there is no planning permission required, but if you put an additional floor on any building in this city, planning permission is required. This means that the works might not go as smoothly as indicated. However, I am not 100% aware of the details. I would welcome the increase in warehousing. There are other State buildings in the vicinity that could be considered in this context. Even though the capacity is increasing by two thirds, and despite the fact that we are in a digital age, the growing amount of paperwork that the National Archives have to store, maintain and make available to the public means that we will reach that capacity quickly. This will especially be the case if some of the documentation I am suggesting should be transferred to the archives actually is transferred.

One such set of materials are those held by the Land Commission. Its records date back as far as 1892. I am told there are 800 million records in its archive in Portlaoise. They are not available to the public via a walk-in facility, though, and people have to prove their links to the materials. In the North, such records are available. The split happened in 1922, after which the Land Commission's records in the North were opened up to the public. Doing the same here could be considered. At some point in the future, perhaps the House will ensure that those records are transferred to and held in the National Archives.

It is good that the site of the Jacob's biscuit factory was used for the National Archives, given the link between the National Archives and the many records held by the Military Archives. I am reading The Military Archives: A Historyby Commandant Daniel Ayiotis, which was published recently and outlines how the Military Archives came about, how information has been extracted from it over the years and how it is almost fully digitalised and available to the public now. The number of hits on its digital archive shows that the public have an interest in its history. This is one of the reasons for the National Archives. They are not just for historians or those who are looking into Government policy. Often, they are accessed by members of the general public who want to find out where they came from, where decisions were made, etc.

Another archive that is not in the National Archives and seems to have gone missing is one that the Minister would be interested in, namely, the Gaeltacht Commission's census that was carried out in 1925. The Garda Síochána went to every town and village and detailed who was an Irish speaker and, strangely enough, how many cattle and sheep they had. We have the report on the census but we do not have the original census records. The Civil Service never throws anything out, so there is a box or a room full of the original documents somewhere, but no one seems able to find it. These records would be useful and important in showing who were native speakers in 1925 just after the Civil War and how that has changed since. The report is worth reading and, if people are interested, can be found in the University of Galway and is available online, but the National Archives could follow up on finding the records of the individuals and families specifically. They would be a tremendous draw for the public to visit the National Archives and interrogate the files, assuming they were not immediately digitised.

I welcome that the 1926 census is being digitised. The Minister granted €5 million last year to ensure that that happened and that the census would be available on day 1 in April 2026. As parliamentarians, we should discuss whether census records need to be held for 100 years before they are made public. In other jurisdictions, the period is much less - 50 years or 70 years. In the original Seanad debate on the census records, the period was meant to be 50 years, but that did not come to be.

I will not delay proceedings further. I welcome this move. Given that the National Archives will take possession of this documentation from the Courts Service, will additional moneys be provided to help them store it? It is a large archive. I do not know whether the Courts Service's records extend beyond the courts to prisons. Will prison records fall under the National Archives? Prisons are part of the Department of Justice, but I do not know whether they are regarded as independent institutions that hold their own records. Perhaps the Minister will answer these questions when she is wrapping up.

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