James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister of State for taking this matter on the Adjournment, which I am sure he will agree is important to people providing a service in genealogy. Genealogy is the key that unlocks the mysteries of our past and in doing so makes sense of our present. As Aristotle said, if you would understand anything, observe its beginnings and its developments.

With an estimated 60 million people worldwide claiming Irish ancestry, there is no shortage of quests to find Irish roots, allied with a natural curiosity about the role of Irish families and a deep-rooted wish to know what a particular family has contributed to our history or the reason ancestors left their original birthplaces. We are not on opposite sides here in saying that such projects provide an invaluable service and open pathways to our past but a difference of opinion may arise in the way the service is assisted and the provision of funding opportunities, which are not equitably distributed.

I have been contacted by a constituent of mine in County Longford, Noel Farrell, who approached the Irish Genealogical Project last summer assuming it would promote and encourage all valid genealogical projects. This man, whose project entails months of data entry and indexation similar to the work undertaken by the IGP, expected that his proposal would be met with a clear affirmative or rejection. However, he was informed that it was not in the remit of the IGP to help genealogical projects other than its own. Appeals for funding to the Heritage Council, the Leader programme and the Arts Council, as well as the IGP, met with rejection.

My concern is that if all other genealogical projects are ignored in favour of the Irish Genealogical Project, the promotion of Irish genealogy as a whole suffers. That leads to an indifference or distorted competition in the genealogy market and also raises questions about the main objective of the IGP and its role in promoting Irish genealogy. How many other projects have met with refusal and been required to compete in an imbalanced market? This question is perhaps answered in part by the lack of other genealogical projects such as that of my constituent because they could not survive in a market where one project is granted annual funding and has the added advantage of using FÁS subsidised workers to help with its data entry work while others must struggle to survive.

The local project being undertaken by a Longford man, Noel Farrell, entails helping people in Ireland search their family tree without a cost to the taxpayer. Mr. Farrell has already published 27 books covering 30 towns in Ireland and plans to publish 25 more covering a further 25 towns but with a small return and no funding to provide for essential day to day living expenses that work becomes increasingly difficult. Funding for my constituent's project should be sourced from the national development plan and Tourism Ireland or FÁS, which finances the Irish Genealogical Project. The amount of funding required would be performance related. For coverage of an additional 20 towns, the total requirement would be €40,000, averaging €2,000 per town, which would cover the time needed to complete all research for the individual areas.

I call on the Minister to provide the necessary funding for the project I have highlighted and also for other similar undertakings in this specified field to allow genealogical projects to survive and to maintain competition in an increasingly expensive market. The funding of the IGP at the expense of other valid projects will inevitably breed an ESB style monopoly where the people of Ireland will have no option but to pay a large fee to the State's genealogical centres while every other genealogical project collapses. I have two or three copies with me today. I gave one to the Cathaoirleach earlier. Mr. Farrell is doing an exceptional job and for a small amount of money he would do a great deal for Irish society.