Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I requested the presence of the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to address the upcoming Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Bill 2018 in the knowledge that it would soon be taken in the Chamber. It was my hope some clarity could be provided on the amendment to section 198 of the principal Act. It is my belief and that of many within libraries and the heritage sector that there is a serious omission from the amendment that will result in an increasing hole in national memory which will make the future understanding of our society difficult. This is a live issue as the average life of a webpage is 100 days. Currently, legal deposit legislation provides that a library, for example, has a responsibility to obtain every hard copy publication in the State. That provision needs to be adapted for the digital age. Libraries must be able to harvest the dot ie domain. We entrust them with the responsibility to collect hard copies and it is time to do the same for digital formats. The consultation process on the Bill came within the remit of the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, but the Bill comes within the remit of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation. I wonder whether if the two Departments are talking about this. Have they explored the recommendations made in the report of the copyright review committee?