Diarmuid Wilson (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy O'Malley, and the officials from the Department of Social and Family Affairs to the House. I am very pleased to speak here on the Civil Registration Bill 2003, which is the first major reform of civil registration legislation since it was first introduced in Ireland in 1845. This is a comprehensive Bill, which provides for the reorganisation and modernisation of the registration of births, stillbirths, adoptions, marriages and deaths.

I support this important legislation as the existing structures and procedures are cumbersome and almost outdated. The provisions brought before us are well thought out and reflect the changing nature of life in 21st century. The Minister, Deputy Coughlan, and her Department deserve great praise for introducing this legislation, which in business terms will make all civil registrations more customer friendly, which is something all State agencies should attempt to do.

Issues of civil registration touch each of us, our families and friends. It is easy to assume that civil registration only affects us at birth, when someone else did the registration for us, and then at death, when once again, someone else will look after the details on our behalf. However, in the years between birth and death, many aspects of civil registration impact on us. These include the documentation for marriage, enrolling children at school, commencing work and getting passports.

The basic registration procedures have remained static over the years, despite the rapid advancements in technology that we use to our advantage in many other areas of life. We need to embrace these technological advances and utilise them to benefit all our citizens. I am sure substantial benefits will arise from the modernisation programme the Minister has brought before us in this Civil Registration Bill 2003. I wholeheartedly welcome the steps towards the introduction of modern technology to provide for on-line registration, electronic certificate production, and the eventual capturing and storing in electronic format of all paper-based records since 1845.

All of us have at times cursed the huge amount of paper work and repetition required to perform certain tasks. I welcome wholeheartedly any change that will see an improvement in service, greater efficiency in the use of resources and reduction in red tape. Until now, the registration and certificate production processes were manual, time consuming and location dependent. I know people who had to travel on numerous occasions all over the country just to get copies of original certificates. This long-term plan will reduce the demand for paper certificates for the purposes of Government services, which I welcome.

Since September 2003, the Department of Social and Family Affairs has implemented a new child benefit system. This is possible due to the fact that all new birth registration data is transferred electronically from the civil registration computer system. As the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, said in her speech earlier, this is a prime example of the e-Government objective of Departments working together to provide more convenient access to services for citizens. The introduction of the new civil registration system as outlined in this Bill, is therefore a flagship initiative in providing life-centred services to customers.

The Bill will provide for the faster production of birth, death and marriage certificates and will also streamline the registration of adoptions. The provisions will end lengthy queues for birth and marriage certificates. I wish the Minister and her Department well with their plans to create a truly customer friendly service throughout the Department.