Dáil debates
Thursday, 23 February 2023
National Archives Act 1986 (Section 1(2)(d)) Order 2023: Motion
1:25 pm
Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I move:
That Dáil Éireann approves the following Order in draft: National Archives Act 1986 (Section 1(2)(d)) Order 2023, a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 31st January, 2023.
Tá mé sásta go bhfuil an deis seo agam chun an rún a phlé leis an Teach. I thank the House for the invitation to discuss this motion to add the Courts Service to the Schedule to the National Archives Act. The National Archives of Ireland was established on 1 June 1988 under the National Archives Act 1986 to preserve the archive of records of central government and the papers of the Public Record Office of Ireland and State Paper Office, both of which were dissolved. In 1992, the headquarters of the National Archives moved to the former Jacob’s biscuit factory in Bishop Street, Dublin 8.
The National Archives occupies a key position in the cultural and intellectual life of the nation and holds the records of the modern Irish State. These are key to informing Government policy and assisting research into the political, economic and social forces that have shaped our nation. Under the National Archives Act 1986, Government Departments, offices, the courts and bodies listed in the Schedule to the Act are obliged to transfer records older than 30 years to the National Archives. This is known as the 30-year rule. The National Archives (Amendment) Act 2018 allows for the earlier release of records after 20 years if the relevant Minister, and I, as Minister with responsibility for the National Archives, agree that the early release is warranted by virtue of the historical or public interest value or to facilitate fair reporting of matters of common interest to the State and other jurisdictions.
Every year, Government Departments and offices, as well as State bodies, transfer records over 30 years old to the National Archives. Each record taken in is listed by Department office and included in the accessions report that is published as an appendix to the annual Report of the Director of the National Archives. Following submission to Government, this is laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas.
The 2021 annual report listed the transferred records predating 1992 from Departments and offices of the State that were released for public inspection under the Act. Not all records due to transfer to the National Archives under the 30-year rule do so. This is due in large part to the fact that the storage facility in the National Archives building has been physically full for several years. As a result, just a fraction of eligible records transfer each year. In turn, many records that do transfer are moved off site to commercial storage to be retrieved, as necessary, when requested by members of the public. I am pleased to inform the House that the archival repository project will convert the warehouse located to the rear of Bishop Street headquarters to a secure, environmentally controlled repository complying with international storage standards. It will provide an increase of two thirds in the total storage capacity to be available to the archives. This will be achieved by inserting an additional floor into the warehouse and having both floors fitted out with a modern shelving and retrieval system. The opportunity will be taken to have the warehouse building future-proofed to allow further additions in future decades. Planning will not be required. This very important high-profile project is being driven by the Office of Public Works, OPW, and overseen by a high-level steering group from my Department, the OPW and the National Archives. The OPW recently invited tenders for contractors to deliver the archival repository, and I expect that the new facility will open in the next few years. The records now in commercial storage will be returned to Bishop Street at a significant saving to the taxpayer, and the backlog of records from Departments can be taken into the archives and made available for public inspection.
The Courts Service was established in November 1999 under the Courts Service Act 1998 to manage and administer the courts. As it was established after the National Archives Act 1986, the question has been raised as to how the Courts Service is comprehended by the National Archives Acts. Section 1(2) of the National Archives Act 1986 defines a Department of State as including "references to a court." It follows that for the purposes of the Act, a court constitutes a Department of State and records made or received and held in the course of business by a court constitute departmental records, and, subject to the National Archives Act, should be sent to the National Archives when they are 30 years old.
Indeed, the archives hold court records from the foundation of the State up to the 1990s. These include records relating to the District Court, Circuit Court, High Court, Central Criminal Court, Court of Criminal Appeal and Supreme Court. In addition, the National Archives holds some earlier court records predating the destruction of the Public Record Office in 1922. Many of these records survived only because they had not been transferred to the Public Record Office of Ireland by the local court offices before 1922. While the lack of archival storage facilities limits the court records that can be accepted, the National Archives nevertheless continues to accept records. A detailed list is provided in Appendix C Accessions, 2021 in the annual Report of the Director of the National Archives, a copy of which was deposited in the Oireachtas Library on 24 January 2023.
While the courts are subject to the National Archives Act, the question could be posed as to whether the Courts Service is itself a Department of State that has not been expressly added to the Schedule to the Act as a scheduled body. The Courts Service is an independent State agency established to administer and manage the courts, support the Judiciary, provide information on the court system to the public and provide court buildings and facilities for court users. While the courts remain subject to obligations under sections 7 and 8 of the National Archives Act to retain and preserve court records and transfer them to the National Archives records under the 30-year rule, the issue that arises is whether it is permissible for the Courts Service to facilitate or give effect to the transfer of these records in circumstances where the Courts Service itself is not a Department of State. In this regard, the Courts Services has now been expressly added to the Schedule to the Act, and the provisions of the Courts Service Act 1998 do not appear to have the usual non-textual amendment that would permit an existing reference to a Department of State to be construed as a reference to the Courts Service.
In circumstances where the courts are required in accordance with sections 7 and 8 to retain, preserve and transfer core records to the National Archives, the statutory functions of the Courts Service are likely sufficiently broad to permit the Courts Service to facilitate or give practical effect to this transfer.
Section 5 of the Courts Service Act 1998 confers upon the Courts Service the express functions of managing the courts and providing support services to judges. Under section 6, these functions are supported by a relatively broad power for the Courts Service to do anything necessary or expedient to enable it to perform its functions.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, and in order to put the matter beyond all doubt, I am proposing that the Schedule to the National Archives Act be amended to include the Courts Service as a scheduled body. This would bring the records created or held by the Courts Service in the course of its business, such as administrative records, unambiguously within the scope of the National Archives Acts 1986 to 2018. This means that the status of the Courts Service, as distinct from the courts, will be addressed by the proposal to add the service to the schedule to the Act.
Under section 1(2)(d) of the National Archives Act 1986, the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, after consulting the director of the National Archives and the National Archives Advisory Council "may by order amend the Schedule". The director and the National Archives Advisory Council were formally consulted on the addition of the Courts Service to the Schedule to the Act, and both are in agreement that it should be added. The matter of making additions to the Schedule arises from time to time, particularly with public sector organisations that were formed after 1986. In most such cases, the legislation forming the new organisations is drafted to ensure that the new body will be subject to the National Archives Act.
Before the order can be made, a draft must be laid before each House of the Oireachtas and the order may not be made until a resolution approving the draft is passed by each House. Since the Courts Service is less than 30 years old, its records will not need to be transferred until 2030. Adding the Courts Service to the Schedule now will facilitate the proper preservation of its records and prepare for their orderly transfer at the end of the decade. I seek the House's support for the addition of the Courts Service to the Schedule to the National Archives Acts 1986 to 2018.
1:35 pm
Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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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.
Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this legislation. I wish to discuss the Irish Land Commission.
Mr. Pat Shine, a neighbour of mine, came to see me in Leinster House recently. In his retirement, he has, unfortunately, been involved in the registration of bogs in County Roscommon. In the case of his family, 280 pages of documentation, including 96 different documents that had to be signed in 98 different places, had to be submitted to register the bog. It took three years to process the application. The big difficulty for him was getting access to the Irish Land Commission records for his family. A query he got back from the Property Registration Authority ran to five pages of legal questions. That is what families across the country who are trying to register bogland are dealing with due to the lack of access to these data that are being stored in the Irish Land Commission records in Portlaoise.
Unfortunately, I have a lot of experience of dealing with the Irish Land Commission through the years, or the lands division in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. On numerous occasions I have dealt with Josephine, who manages the files from County Roscommon. No more than any of the other officials, she is pulling her hair out trying to manage these paper records that have not been digitised. There are between 7 million and 17 million uncategorised records in the warehouse in Portlaoise. Outside of the National Archives' collection, this is the single largest collection of records, dating back to the late 19th century and early 20th century, in Ireland. It was set up as a result of the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881. The records are held in a warehouse in an industrial estate in Portlaoise. One has to get written permission from the descendants of the people who were involved in the original transactions in order to get access to that documentation. As far as the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is concerned, these are private and personal records. The records of my family are in there, as are those of many others, particularly those in the western half of the country. I am sure some of the records of the Minister's family are held there too. The records should be digitised and made available. They contain a substantial amount of historical facts. This is particularly important in light of the loss of so many records, including many that were held in the Four Courts and the Custom House, during the Civil War.
This resource is vital for people tracing their history and ancestry, but it is also vital for families that are trying to register their plots of land or bog. The difficulty is that it will be impossible to find a solicitor willing to go through the process that Pat Shine went through. It is okay for him; he has a love of this and is retired and can do that. There is no solicitor, however, who will be able to charge any type of reasonable fee to ensure the acre or half acre plot of bog a family was given by the Irish Land Commission is properly registered and recorded. The failure to provide access to these records means that people are being denied access to their land and property rights. The records should not just be accessible to the people and families whose names are contained within them.
This is a history of this State, probably one of the most comprehensive histories we have left, given what happened during the War of Independence and the Civil War. Each of the records needs to be digitised and made available online so that we can all access them and look at them. I hope the Minister in her response will give a positive indication that this will be a priority for the Government.
1:45 pm
Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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I wish to endorse some of what was said regarding the Irish Land Commission records. Indeed, Deputy Ó Snodaigh also made that point. This is a treasure trove. Apart from them being working documents - I appreciate that is what they are - I would have thought they should be digitised because that would protect the original documents. These documents are often used or could be used as census substitutes. The loss of the 19th century census records has left gaps. Those of us who are interested in genealogy and so on seek out those census substitutes. There is a sizeable number of them in various places but this is one of the biggest archives and I completely endorse the calls for the records to be digitised and made available. I accept that they are working documents but access to them is important, even for historians.
It always struck me as strange that one can, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh pointed out, go up to the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland and look at these records. The records held there come up as far as 1920. For some reason, there is secrecy here when it comes to these documents that are available for part of an island but were one collection of records before that. We have almost created a partition in respect of something that should be available.
It is important that cataloguing is done consistently. If it is not, things fall behind. I acknowledge the loss of the Public Record Office in a fire during the Civil War. I acknowledge the work that was done on the virtual archive. It is astonishing work. The fact that those physical documents were lost - and we have such poor respect for that part of our heritage - is all the more reason for doing this. It is striking that the loss of the records during the Civil War took place. We talk about that, yet it seems that kind of devaluation of things is being repeated through the failure to make the records as available as they ought to be. It may be down to cost or planning. These things take time, just like the next round of census records will take time to digitise, but even planning for it would be a real move forward. There was an announcement in that regard in the past year or two, but it was limited. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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The National Archives hold testamentary records from the Probate Office up to 1991. The Public Records (Ireland) Act 1867 established the Public Record Office of Ireland as the official place of deposit for the records of the higher courts once they were 20 years old. This practice continued until recently, with many court offices, particularly the Probate Office, transferring their records to the National Archives once they were 20 years old. The National Archives have advised publicly that due to the lack of storage space in recent years, this practice has ceased and courts now transfer records when they are 30 years old, which is a difficulty in itself.
I am not sure whether it comes under the remit of the Minister, but the trouble in west Cork is that there does not seem to be a plan in place for the appointment of a State solicitor to west Cork to replace the person who retired in December 2022 after 36 years of service. Jeremiah Healy of Fermoy is State solicitor for east Cork and is currently acting as State solicitor for west Cork. This is not a satisfactory long-term arrangement. We want to retain our own State solicitor in west Cork, and there are plenty of suitably qualified solicitors willing to take up the position.
Records should be digitised, as has been said, and recorded. Many people call to the church for their historical records, State records. There seems to be a lot of records all over the place as such, but not compiled into one to allow people access to their personal information or that of their families.
People and family members come from all over the world, especially to west Cork, which is a tourist area, and they want to go through the records. Some are held in churches and some in State buildings. I hope this prioritises the whole issue. Records should be digitised and recorded.
1:55 pm
Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The question arises what court records are held by the National Archives. The majority of court records held by the National Archives date from the foundation of the modern Irish State in 1922, although sometimes you would have to wonder how modern it is. These include records relating to all courts, including the District Court, the Circuit Court, the High Court, the Central Criminal Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Supreme Court. Some earlier court records were destroyed in 1922. The Civil War was mentioned. Republicans are often blamed for destroying records; they did not. They destroyed some, but this was minimal. Under the guise of the anti-Treaty forces' insurgency, pro-Treaty forces demolished and bombarded buildings, and did untold damage. The untrue myth continues to this day that it was the republicans who did all this. No, it was not. I will put that on record very clearly. These older court records include the registers of petty sessions, quarter sessions and all the other courts back in the day.
The Land Commission, Coimisiún na Talún, was mentioned by a number of speakers. It did great work at its inception and enabled many young farming families to eke out a living on the land. Many of those farms have expanded, although some farmers have left the land, more is the pity. Cá bhfuil an Coimisiún na Talún anois? Tá sé imithe. It is not functioning. Conglomerates are just gobbling up land here, there and everywhere. People find it very hard to access Land Commission records. The same situation can be said to exist regarding the surveys done in 1935, as Deputy Ó Snodaigh referenced, near the inception of the State, when a census of Gaelic speakers was done ar fud an tír ag an am sin. The area in which I live, cois an tAbhainn na Siúire, was a breac-Gaeltacht up to 1950. It is only recently, in the past decade, that the last of those good people left. They were Gaelic speakers and men and women of culture and heritage, who loved their language. I think it was P.H. Pearse who said, níl aon náisiún gan teanga, or a nation is not a nation without its language.
It was possible for An Garda to collect that sort of information at that time. How come those records cannot be digitised now? How come we do not have the space? We were told we would not have space for the retrieval of these records in ten years' time. The HSE has rented buildings in every town throughout this country. Many other areas have the voting machines; space was found to put them into buildings throughout the country, for which 20-year contracts were signed. The waste of money there was enormous. The lack of space excuse does not sit with me for one minute because the State has plenty of property and plenty of ways getting property. There are many auctioneers, valuers and private property owners who have space. That is a lame excuse. We need to pony up, accept the delays that were there, and be respectful of our culture, heritage and, above all, our records.
Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputies for their contributions. I encourage Members to visit the National Archives, either as members of the public - applications for a reader's card are now online and it is a very simple process - or, alternatively, if they would like to visit the Bishop Street building to see the work that goes on there and be briefed on plans for the new archival repository, I would be happy to ask the director to make arrangements for a delegation from this House to visit.
On Deputy Mattie McGrath's question regarding exactly what court records are held by the National Archives, court records are defined as departmental records under the terms of the National Archives Act 1986. The majority of court records held, some of which he outlined, date from the foundation of the modern Irish State in 1922 and include those of the District Court, the Circuit Court, the High Court, the Central Criminal Court, the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Supreme Court. Some earlier court records predating the destruction in 1922 are held by the National Archives. These include registers of petty sessions, quarter sessions, assizes and high courts. Many of these records survive because they were not transferred to the Public Record Office of Ireland by local court offices before 1922. The National Archives also holds some copies and transcripts of destroyed records, including transcripts of medieval rolls made by the Irish Record Commission and copies of legal and testamentary records obtained from various sources, most notably private collections donated by solicitors. As Deputy Catherine Murphy referenced, one of the great legacy projects of the decade of centenaries is the virtual Beyond 2022, a capital project the Department funded, that builds a digital repository of many of the records lost in 1922.
Prison records are held by the National Archives and are available for inspection by members of the public, subject to general data protection regulation requirements where people are still living.
Most, if not all, Members raised the issue of Land Commission records. The digitisation of those records is being led by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. A limited number of records are held by the National Archives and a process is proposed to catalogue same. The vast majority, however, are working records, as Deputy Catherine Murphy referenced, and are held by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which has started a process to digitise search aids for millions of Land Commission records. While it is a matter for that Department, I understand this process will take a number of years.
I think I have addressed all the questions. If I have left something out, my officials will get back to Deputies. I recognise and appreciate their great interest in this area, and the endless fascinating discussions that can be generated from any material held by the National Archives. I have no doubt Members saw the wonderful Anglo-Irish Treaty exhibition either at Dublin Castle or as it toured the country last year. I hope they will shortly get an opportunity to see Michael Collins's diaries, which are in the National Archives. I promise Deputies that, in a few short years, the opening of a new archival repository will provide a fitting home for our heritage and a showcase for many wonderful exhibitions into the future.
As I said, the National Archives is one of the State's most important national cultural institutions and plays an essential part in the cultural life of the country by collecting, managing and preserving the public record of Ireland. It also plays a key role in the day-to-day management of the current records of Departments and State agencies. The National Archives have a long history of engagement with the courts and Courts Service. It has proactively engaged with the Courts Service over the past number of years on a range of issues relating to the archival management and transfer of records from the courts. This has included archival and records management guidance input to the Courts Service digital transformation project. The inclusion of the Courts Service on the Schedule to the National Archives Act 1986 will help facilitate greater co-operation with the National Archives within existing legal frameworks for the archival management of public records.
To recap, it is clear that court records remain departmental records of the courts and fall within the scope of sections 7 and 8 of the National Archives Act. The status of the Courts Service as distinct from the courts or court offices under that Act is now being addressed by the proposal to add the Courts Service to the Schedule to the National Archives Act 1986. Court records are covered by this Schedule. The Courts Service administrative records are also likely to be covered but by adding the Courts Service to the Schedule it will put this beyond doubt.