Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have some questions about the concerns the Attorney General had and whether those concerns were about resources.Before the Minister's time in the Department, the then Minister, Deputy Heather Humphreys, I and other members of the arts committee had lengthy discussions around the obligation of the State to release certain records and the failure of the State to do so in many cases. Is the concern of the Attorney General one about resources or a legal concern? Is that the reason that my amendment around the words "may" or "shall" was not accepted?

We have a Private Members' Bill on the Order Paper on the statistics Act and the early release of the 1926 census. We are in a decade of centenary. That resource would be of great value to historians and to people looking to explore their heritage. We know the success of the 1901 and 1911 census returns of the National Archives; they have proved a wonderful national heritage resource for our diaspora also, which is available via the internet. Genealogists and historians have campaigned for this for quite some time. The Minister's predecessor, former Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, had promised the early release of the 1926 census in 2012, and I wonder if the Minister would consider making that promise a reality. No one from the 1926 census is still living and I am asking the Department to consider its early release. Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl previously brought forward that piece of legislation, as did Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh, and I believe there is absolute merit in the early release of the 1926 census, so that we can have that information available to us in these centenary years.