Tom Parlon (Laois-Offaly, Progressive Democrats)

I am pleased to bring the Civil Registration (Amendment) Bill 2005 before the House. The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Civil Registration Act 2004 to provide for the continuation of payment of allowances and fees to private registrars of births, marriages and deaths.

In addition to registrars directly employed by the HSE, there are approximately 50 private registrars appointed under the registration of births, deaths and marriages Acts to their own designated districts. The majority are private individuals and general practitioners, who provide the service from private residences and private offices. Some private registrars are HSE employees, such as community welfare officers, who perform registration functions in addition to, but separate from, their substantive appointments. All registration staff, including private registrars, will be reappointed on commencement of the provisions of the Civil Registration Act 2004. This is a minor technical amendment but it is essential to facilitate the commencement of the 2004 Act.

As Members will be aware, the Civil Registration Act 2004 was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas and signed into law in February 2004. I would like to remind the House of the purpose of the Act. The main objectives of the Act are as follows: to rationalise and modernise the procedures for registering births, stillbirths and deaths; to give an tArd Chláraitheoir responsibility for the overall policy for the Civil Registration Service, including maintaining standards of service; assign responsibility for the management of the Civil Registration Service at local level to the Health Service Executive; to streamline the procedures for the registration of adoptions; to establish new registers of divorce and civil nullity; and to reform the procedures governing the registration of marriages and facilitate the linking of life events.

Civil registration was first introduced in Ireland in 1845 for the registration of non-Catholic marriages and extended in 1864 to births, deaths and Roman Catholic marriages. Thus, a comprehensive registration system has been in place since 1864. The registers form a basic, continuous source of information about the population by providing a record of vital events relating to people and satisfying the need for evidence which has a bearing on rights, entitlements, liabilities, status and nationality. The registers were subsequently extended to adoptions and stillbirths.

Civil registration touches on each of us at important stages in our lives, beginning with the registration of our births and ending when our deaths are registered. Between these events, civil registration affects us both directly, as in the case of marriage, or indirectly, when certificates are required for many of the services available in our society, such as enrolling a child in school, obtaining a passport, taking up employment and claiming a social welfare payment.

While there has been little change to the basic registration procedures since 1864, there have been many changes in our society, major developments in technology, and increased expectations on the part of citizens as to how public services should be delivered. Recognising the importance of civil registration and acknowledging the changing needs of our society, the Government approved a programme of work to modernise the Civil Registration Service. The civil registration modernisation programme is a joint initiative between the Department of Health and Children, which oversees the administration of the Civil Registration Service, and the Department of Social and Family Affairs which processed the Civil Registration Act 2004. This is a major undertaking involving the introduction of modern technology providing on-line registration, electronic certificate production and the capture of digitised signatures; a redesign of business processes and procedures; capturing and storing in electronic format all paper-based records from 1845 and a reform of legislation.

There will be substantial benefits, both tangible and intangible, arising from the modernisation programme. These include improved service to customers, for example extended opening times; greater efficiency in the use of resources and reduction in red tape; nationwide standards for registering life events; the registration of divorces and civil annulments on a central register; the electronic capture and transmission of all vital statistics on life events to the Central Statistics Office; the sharing of data with designated Government Departments and agencies; and a reduction in the demand for paper certificates for the purposes of Government services.

Until now, the registration and certificate production processes were manual, time consuming and location dependent. The modernisation programme marks a fundamental change in the way the Civil Registration Service operates and is delivering significant improvements in operational efficiency and customer satisfaction throughout the country.

I am pleased to inform the House that the new computer system is fully rolled out across the entire country with electronic registration and certificate production available in all registration offices. It might also interest Senators to know that the system has been recognised nationally and internationally as an example of excellence in e-Government and public service provision.

The modernisation programme aims to deliver a high quality, proactive service to customers. Since September 2003, all new birth registration data is transferred electronically to the Department of Social and Family Affairs from the civil registration computer system. This facilitates the allocation of a personal public service number, PPS, to a child at registration; the establishment of a child's public service identity and the creation of family links on the national central database for all citizens — the client records system which is administered by the Department of Social and Family Affairs; and the initiation of a child benefit claim for first-born children and the automatic payment for second and subsequent children in a family. In essence, payment of child benefit in respect of a baby born and registered by the Civil Registration System on a Monday is made, or the mother is contacted, by the following Thursday without any manual intervention. 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 is therefore a flagship initiative in providing life-centred services to customers. The visible improvement from the customer perspective is that a single interaction with a public service agency, for example, the registration of a birth not only achieves its original purpose, but also triggers a series of related services by another agency, in this case the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Customers availing of the e-enabled service no longer have to source and complete a multi-paged paper application form and supply a paper birth certificate. They simply have to register the baby's birth to set the process in motion.

In many cases, the birth notification is passed electronically from the hospital to the registration computer system, and this facility will be implemented for all maternity hospitals in the future. In this case, the birth details are captured just once, at the earliest point in the process, with seamless electronic data transmission from hospital to registration to child benefit and back again to registration with the PPS number.

In conjunction with GRO, the REACH Agency electronically publishes deaths data and this data is available to all Government agencies. This is of particular importance for the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the HSE for the efficient and effective management of their services. Vital statistics are transmitted electronically to the CSO. This greatly reduces the amount of manual intervention involved in such exercises, improves the quality of data and enhances the ability of the CSO to manage the data.

The capture of historic data in electronic format has been a central element of the modernisation programme. This has been a mammoth task, involving the digitisation of over 27 million records and 5 million registration images. The technology used in the process is first rate, and I commend all the staff for their efforts over the years in what has been a difficult and painstaking task.

I am especially pleased to inform the House that the decentralisation of the GRO to Roscommon has been successfully achieved. A new office building has been provided which accommodates a number of Departments based in Roscommon. The building includes purpose-built archival storage, with up-to-date technology, providing a secure facility for vital historical records. A new staffing structure has been put in place in the registration service of the HSE, and extended opening hours are in operation in most of the main registration offices. I am pleased at the way the registration staff have embraced the new challenge and I am confident that their continued commitment will ensure a first class registration service in the years to come.

A significant investment will be made in bringing genealogical research facilities up to modern standards. Discussions are under way with the OPW with a view to procuring new premises and facilities for research. The research facility will remain in Dublin and will be supported by a dedicated staff of eight. It is also intended to introduce electronic research in the new location. Those with an interest in tracing their roots will be able to search through records much faster and will be able to view the original register entries which have been digitally scanned onto the system. It is hoped eventually to introduce internet-based research which will be available to a world-wide audience.

With all of these developments now in place, the stage has been reached where it will soon be possible to commence parts of the Civil Registration Act 2004. In the course of preparatory work towards commencement, legal advice was received to the effect that the Act needs to be amended to allow for the continuation of payment of fees and allowances to private registrars and the Bill is a necessary amendment to allow this to happen. The purpose of the Bill is to insert a new section 67A into the Act to enable fees and allowances to be paid to private registrars and to provide for the necessary administrative arrangements. During drafting of the commencement and related orders for the Civil Registration Act 2004, it had been intended to provide for these payments to be made on an administrative basis. However, when the draft orders were submitted to the legal adviser, the advice given was that a specific statutory provision would be required. This advice was confirmed by the Attorney General.

Parts 1, 2, 3, 5 and 8 of the Act relate to the administration of the Civil Registration Service and to the registration of births, stillbirths and deaths. Preparatory work to commence these provisions is at an advanced stage and the passing of the Bill will allow them to be commenced within a matter of months.

The new procedures for marriage are set out in Part 6 of the Act and include universal procedures for notification, solemnisation and registration of marriages, as well as a choice of venue for civil marriages. Before these provisions can be commenced, a substantial body of work needs to be completed, including the folllowing: the drafting and publication of regulations, guidelines and detailed procedures; the establishment of a register of solemnisers in consultation with religious bodies; the establishment of a register of approved venues for civil marriages; and the further development of the computer system to facilitate the administration of the new marriage procedures introduced by the Act. Implementation of the other provisions, relating to registration of adoptions, divorces and civil nullity, will follow commencement of the marriage provisions.

I commend the Bill to the House.