Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 461: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the estimated percentage of the population included in the central records system maintained by his Department; the estimated accuracy and currency of the addresses listed; if this database would be of assistance and is available to local authorities to assist in electoral registration duties; if not, his proposals on same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15389/06]

Séamus Brennan (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)
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The Department's central records system, CRS, contains 5.6 million active records. This database has been in existence since 1979. The personal public service, PPS, number, which is widely used to access public services, is the customer identifier in the database. Practically all the population has a PPS number included in the database.

The CRS database is at the core of all the Department's customer-oriented transactions. Existing customers on the Department's schemes — circa 900,000 — are obliged to inform or update the Department of change of address and the address information for this group is likely to be reasonably current. However, the address data for the remaining records on the database may not be as current as there is no legal requirement for an individual to formally maintain official address data.

Preliminary discussions with the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government on the use of the PPS number on the electoral register have taken place. These have indicated legal, technical and operational issues with the sharing of data. The sharing of databases of personal information between public services agencies can only be done in accordance with legislative provisions and where it is possible to accurately match identity data. Considerable effort has been made by my Department over several years to improve the quality of its identity data. An equivalent programme of work would need to be undertaken on the electoral register before it would be practically possible to match the data.