Pat Moylan (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh.

Feargal Quinn (Independent)
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I appreciate the Minister of State rushed from the Dáil to take this Adjournment debate.

I am concerned about the National Archives which performs a vital role that is often forgotten. Its purpose is two-fold: to care for past public records, some of which are, for good reason, closed to the public and to superintend the storage of archives in public institutions and to arrange for their final transfer. Public access is a by-product of these functions which, while secondary, is an important one for historians, genealogists, journalists and others. I am particularly concerned that new legislation in this area, emanating from the Department of Finance, is based purely on saving money rather than on cultural issues.

There are indications that the Department wants to introduce technical legislation aimed at amalgamating three institutions, including the National Library, the Manuscripts Commission and the National Archives. The amalgamation of these institutions under one umbrella featured in the programme for Government 2008. Draft legislation appears imminent. There are issues with such legislation in terms of reorganisation and resources. If a new structure is called into existence for the three bodies, new legislative provisions will be necessary to preserve the powers of the director of the National Archives, which are statutorily defined in the National Archives Act 1986. The director's responsibilities will be totally undermined if he or she is to be answerable to a new hybrid management summoned out of thin air unless the statutory authority for the care of Government records is properly provided for. While additional resources are not likely to be allocated now due to the downturn, future needs must be recognised and spelled out so that the needs of these institutions are not trampled underfoot at a future date when funds become more available.

What progress has been made on the legislation to amalgamate the National Library, the Manuscripts Commission and the National Archives? Will this legislation preserve the full statutory powers of the Director of Archives? On the critical resource front, is the Minister seeking advice on the scale of the problem and the scale of needs? What scale of staffing and accommodation is required? Who superintends the archival records of the Departments in choosing what documents to keep? It is normal for Departments to move their paper regularly. How do the Departments decide what should be kept? It should be professionally and independently decided, if possible.

In an ideal world, I would like to see the National Archives have the extra professional staff it really needs, extra support staff and new accommodation to specific standards. There would also have to be fire proof accommodation to preserve those important documents.

On the digitisation of archives, electronic mail and e-mail are two of the biggest archival issues on which I would like to get the Minister's views. Digitisation has a real value for records, both protecting fragile paper documents with a large demand and by easy access reducing the number of readers, notably genealogists. However, it is expensive and can only be justified for a limited range of record categories. Phoenix suggested recently that €4.5 million had been already spent on the 1911 Census. Apart from the fact that the originals would have to be retained, it is not feasible on cost grounds for most record categories.

A letter in The Times Literary Supplement recently noted that the Kew archives in London proposed to put a deal of money into digitisation of certain categories in high demand and to cut back on the curating of other categories. On the future plans for digitising of archives, will budget cuts affect such digitising? I am interested in the Minister outlining proposals on digitisation of archives for the future.

E-mail poses enormous problems at several levels. I asked a senior civil servant recently how she managed things and she replied that she put print-outs of important letters on her files, but that record keeping in general in her Department was slack.

The registries, which used to organise centrally the files of each Department, have collapsed in Belfast as well as Dublin. It appears that over the past decade and a half, the old central registry system has broken down in the various Departments, and the public should be made aware of what, if anything, has replaced it. In the Department of Health and Children, it was the demands posed by the Freedom of Information Act 1997 which, in the absence of any working arrangement, made necessary a system of civil servants seeking a file number electronically for papers on a new subject. How that system or the system, if any, in other Departments works in terms of the good order of files, the preservation of the integrity of the archive as a whole and meeting the conditions of the National Archives Act 1986 is a subject on which enlightenment for the public would be welcome.

The David Kelly case in London - the Hutton report - in the UK was interesting in archival terms in the sense that a coherent picture was based largely on e-mails - whether by hard copies on file or by fresh print-outs, it was not clear. It seems that we are falling seriously behind considering the digitising of archives at Kew, the Public Records Office in Belfast or even the Irish Virtual Library and Archive Project, IRVLA, in UCD archives. Other archives are investing a great deal in digitising archives. We would surely save space and many man hours if records were digitised and available to the public in that way. I want to know who is superintending the electronic archival records of the Departments in choosing what documents to keep.

If any doubt remains about the alarming situation, the report of the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights Sub-Committee on the Barron Report which considered the Barron report on the Dublin and Monaghan bombings in 1974 should remove it. The subcommittee was "Astonished that better care was not kept of these documents". It called, in March 2004, for an investigation with statutory powers to explore the reasons for loss or destruction and to try to recover documentation. The resulting report in March-April 2007, the so-called McEntee Report, is a damning exposé of a near-total lack of archival control in several Government institutions.

The National Archives are in a unique position, however as a sort of Cinderella. This is in part because its primary function is the humdrum and silent one of looking after the welfare of the records of the State, and access by the public is secondary to that concern. We have a very valuable asset. It is difficult at this time to allocate the sums of money to do everything we want to do, but I emphasise that this is a real challenge. I would like to get some answers to those questions.

Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)
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Senator Quinn raised many important subjects and they are far more extensive than I can possibly deal with in a reply of this kind. Perhaps he should seek a much fuller debate.

The National Archives holds the records of the modern Irish State, which document its historical evolution. It also holds a substantial number of records pre-dating that. With the National Library, it is the main twin repository of our documentary political, social, economic, and cultural heritage. Our modern National Archives were established on 1 June 1988, and took over the functions previously performed by the State Paper Office and the Public Record Office of Ireland. Under the 1986 legislation, the records of Departments, and their agencies, are transferred to the National Archives when they are 30 years old. As someone who has been a reader in the archives, but who in the past has advised the Department of the Taoiseach on the transfer of records more than 30 years old relating to Northern Ireland, I have more than a passing interest in, and commitment to the National Archives.

The Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism has ministerial responsibility for the National Archives. However, the Minister for Finance may, under the National Archives Act, make regulations concerning the proper management and preservation of departmental records held by Departments, and under the Freedom of Information Act 1997 make regulations providing for the management and maintenance of records by public bodies in general. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources also may, under the Harbours Act 1996, give advice or directions to harbour companies and authorities on their records and archives, and the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government may give advice or directions to local authorities on local records and local archives, under the Local Government Act 2001. As Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, I have responsibility for the upkeep and maintenance of the National Archives headquarters. The property is owned by the Commissioners for Public Works.

This House will be aware that Government has indicated that the National Archives, the Irish Manuscripts Commission and the National Library of Ireland shall be merged into a new national library and archives of Ireland. This merger will require the amendment of the National Archives Act 1986 and of the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997. The Minister proposes to update the relevant archival legislation as part of this process.

The new draft legislation is complex, deals with three separate existing bodies, abolishes these bodies, and establishes a new body. The initial draft of this legislation has been completed and transmitted to the directors of the National Archives and National Library and to the chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission for their observations. It is intended to bring this legislation before the Houses this year. I assure the Senator that the legislative requirements of the National Archives are being attended to within the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism at present.

It is acknowledged that the National Archives suffers from a long-standing storage challenge on a constrained site. While efforts have been made to accommodate the State records within its Bishop Street premises, the accommodation currently available there is unsatisfactory. Under present economic circumstances, the planned major capital investment to redevelop the entire Bishop Street facility for the National Archives, involving the subsequent closure of its Four Courts storage, is currently not affordable, and legislation, of itself, cannot resolve this.

The difficulties in the National Archives are being approached in the main from two perspectives. The OPW, at the instigation of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, has agreed to produce a short-to-medium term solution to the storage and accommodation needs of the archives within the existing Bishop Street building complex. The OPW will prepare proposals, and has provided some off-site storage for certain series of records. In addition, the OPW has indicated it will move certain Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food records, mainly relating to the Land Commission, which are still in use out of Bishop Street and thus free up space for the National Archives proper. The administrative staffing of the National Archives, which was admittedly relatively small, has also been strengthened by the Department in recent times.

Conscious of the need to ensure it provides a good service for the public, the National Archives has increasingly engaged with new technology within its limited resources. The digitisation of the 1911 and 1901 census returns is a good example. The National Archives set up this project as a research partnership with its counterpart, Library and Archives Canada. Other partners included the National Library of Ireland and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. The project involved digitising the census returns and background material and making them searchable by address or surname. Library and Archives Canada, deservedly, has a worldwide reputation in the field of document digitisation. As a fellow national archival institution, it shared the same values in the preservation of and access to documentary heritage as the National Archives.

The project is being undertaken in two phases. The 1911 returns for the 32 counties were digitised and are being followed by the 1901 returns. The first phase was launched in December 2007 with the 1911 returns for Dublin city and county. The user figures were very encouraging, with more than 15 million hits and 900,000 individual users on the new website. The records for Dublin were followed in December 2008, when those for counties Antrim, Down and Kerry went live. I launched some of these digitised records in Bishop Street on 22 December 2008. The cumulative traffic figures for 2008 rose to in excess of 31 million hits and more than 2.2 million users. In August 2009 the 1911 returns for the remaining counties went live. To date, there have been almost 165 million hits and 5.5 million users on the website. Of these, the bulk, some 57%, are Irish users, followed by UK users which account for 30%, USA users which account for 5.7%, European users which account for 2.9%, Australian users which account for 1.3%, Canadian users which account for 1% and so on. When one considers that this usage in the United Kingdom and the United States has developed spontaneously, as there has as yet been no formal launch organised for either country, it bodes well for the future.

The National Archives has invited Tourism Ireland to co-operate with it to encourage users to visit Ireland. In addition to visits, it is expected the availability of the census information may well give rise to a demand for old maps and other information from people who wish to trace their roots here. Other digitisation projects are either in train or planning in the National Archives.

While we can move away somewhat from the paper-based presentation of our national records, there is still a need to archive and store the paper original. This is receiving a high priority in the Department and the Office of Public Works. Shouldering my two responsibilities, I am determined to see a cost-effective solution through to a completion. Senior management teams in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the OPW are meeting early next week to advance the solution. I thank the Senator for his interest in the National Archives.

Feargal Quinn (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State and appreciate the words he used. I was very pleased to hear him state the matter was receiving a high priority and that something was happening. When I was in Bishop Street some years ago, I was very impressed by the ability of the team and its interest. However, I still hold certain concerns. The information provided by the Minister of State on the numbers examining the census figures is startling. It would amount to a disaster if we lost them. There has been a vast effort made; I urge the Minister of State to give the matter not only a high priority but the highest priority. I recognise, however, that we do not have the funds to do everything we wish to do. In this case we would never get over the blame that would attach to us if we lost the archives. We must do something about the matter. Therefore, I urge the Minister of State to give it the highest priority and ensure this happens in the way sought.

Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)
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When one discusses an issue, it is always easy to look for defects, deficiencies, shortcomings and flaws. However, there is very spacious accommodation for readers in the National Archives. They are served well and relatively quickly compared to other archives with which I am familiar in other parts of Europe.

Feargal Quinn (Independent)
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I agree.

Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)
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Another point which is totally under-estimated and to which digitisation may offer a solution in some aspects, though not all, is that in the modern age we generate vast quantities of paper. I remember when I was in the Department of Foreign Affairs in the 1970s and working on part 19 of a file on a particular subject, if I wished to retrieve parts seven, eight, nine and ten, for example, it was a devil of a job to do so. People may castigate us about documents being lost, but there was a tsunami of paper. It is a major challenge for every organisation to manage this issue. Some operations are relatively simple to computerise, while it is possible to keep certain records on disk and so on. However, the nature of documents produced by the Government is such that we are betwixt and between paper and digital information. There is onsiderable unease, given that we are living in the digital age, that even more records will go missing than was the case in the paper age.