Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. His response was extremely positive until the second last paragraph which stated that the amendment would allow copyright deposit institutions to accept publications in electronic format and require publishers to comply with any request. It is impossible for the National Library of Ireland, for example, to contact the several million websites we have in this country. It has already swept the ".ie" domain and it cannot obviously display that information on site at the library or online for the public to see. As such, we need stronger legislation.

The current proposal is silent on web archiving. The copyright review group proposed legislation, including a provision to the effect that it would not be an infringement of the rights conferred in the Act if a board or authority reproduced any work made available in the State through the Internet. We will seek to propose amendments if the Bill remains as it is when it comes to the Seanad. It would be disappointing if we allowed the Bill to go through the Oireachtas without making this amendment and allowed the legislation to remain silent on web archiving.