Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

We have covered all of the issues. Section 8 formally enables certain early statutes that are being retained to be proved in court and other legal proceedings by production of a copy of it as reproduced in certain official publications. This may also be done by the production of a copy from those official publications and by having a copy certified by the National Library of Ireland or such other libraries or archives as may be designated. This provision is necessary as many of the originals of these early statutes are either held, as Senator Ryan and others stated, in London or were lost with the destruction of the Public Record Office in Dublin in 1922.

The official publications referred to in this section include the Historic and Municipal Documents of Ireland, HMDI, the Calendar of Documents relating to Ireland, CDI, and the Public Record Office, PRO, volumes, and as Senator Mansergh stated, these are reliable sources. Such volumes, while officially published, were not all published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office or the Stationery Office. As a result, the various Documentary Evidence Acts passed between 1845 and 1925 do not appear to apply to these publications. Subsections (1)(b) and (2) allow a procedure for proof of copy extracts from such volumes and subsection (3) permits specified institutions, in our case the National Library, to impose a charge for providing such copy extracts. The National Library was consulted in the drafting of this section and its views have been taken into account.