Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Before I move on to my main topic, I want to take this opportunity to commend the Minister for all her work in education. A lot of it is done early in the morning and late at night, and I often text the Minister with a problem and she always gets back to me. It is generally recognised that, through the most difficult period many of us have seen in our lives, she has acted in a fantastic manner and given great leadership. Having somebody doing the leaving certificate in our own home, I know that the moves she made to help are very much appreciated by students and parents throughout the country.

I want to deal with the issue of the records of the Land Commission. The Land Commission was created in 1881, originally as a rent fixing commission. Of course, it was then given responsibility for the distribution of farm land in most of Ireland. It was a 32-county organisation but, after independence, the records of Northern Ireland were separated and the records in the Republic are now held in Portlaoise. In 1885, the Ashbourne land Act allowed the commission to break up estates and facilitate tenant purchase. The Land Commission oversaw the transfer of 13.5 million acres of land, an extraordinary amount of land.

I believe a pathway could be found to perhaps get access to some of those records, for good reasons. All history records, wherever they are, will contain good stories and bad stories.This is an untapped resource. If there were greater access to the records, which are very limited in the Republic, it would generate great interest in our culture and history and promote tourism. Not only would the opening of some of the records for each county give us great insight into how things were done but there would also be a massive benefit, even in terms of employment. It would really show us how population movement occurred during the times in question and how getting Irish Land Commission land led to the formation of villages and towns.

My information is that there are in excess of 50,000 boxes of records held at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine buildings in Portlaoise. As the Minister probably knows, there are two components, namely a records branch and an administrative branch. Based on the research I have done, there could be up to 100,000 maps and 50,000 boxes in the records branch. There are more than 70,000 items in the administrative branch.

I am interested in how the breaking up of the big estates happened and the difference it made. It would be really fantastic if we could consider a pathway towards opening up the records further. I understand there are GDPR issues and that there are probably controversial issues also but I believe much of the information would be very good to have available and would be of great benefit to society.

It is important to point out that there is greater access to the records in Northern Ireland and that there has not been any great difficulty there. We could consider making some changes in this regard. There is a lot of work to be done on the archives by historians. I would like the Minister to take this on board, raise the matter with her Government colleagues and see whether some progress can be made on it. I thank her for being present to deal with this query.