Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 363: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs his views with reference to his Department's customer charter, that the General Register Office in Roscommon town has made improvements in the turn around of its postal business provided to the public; if in hope of maintaining this momentum, he will endorse the Civil Registration Service's policy of making maximum use of its resources by encouraging members of the public, solicitors, legal researchers, genealogists and local historians and so on to make full use of the GRO's new computerised database for obtaining certified and uncertified copies of birth, marriage and death records through application not only to the central office but to the State's 32 local registration offices; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4685/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The General Register Office (GRO) is the central repository for records of life events in the State, including records relating to legal domestic adoption. The primary function of the Civil Registration Service is to facilitate the civil registration of life events and to provide certified copies of entries in registers of such life events on application from clients. The GRO also provides certain other services directly to clients including the civil registration of stillbirths, the recognition of foreign divorces and a family history/genealogical research service.

Registration services are delivered at local level by the Health Service Executive (HSE) through a network of local registration offices managed by Area Superintendent Registrars appointed by the Executive. Access to the life event records, previously held in the single physical repository of the General Register Office, has been extended by the creation of a computerised electronic data base of these records. It is now possible for anybody to obtain certified or uncertified copies of records of life events at any civil registration office across the State regardless of where the life events occurred. This provides clients with a choice as to whether they direct applications for certificates to a local office or to the GRO.

One of the most important aspects of the modernisation programme has been the introduction of new legislation relating to civil registration, this legislation is contained in the Civil Registration Act, 2004. The provisions of this Act are being commenced on a phased basis and to date provisions relating to the registration of births, stillbirths, deaths and marriages have come into effect. Arising from the commencement of these provisions these life events may now be registered at any local registration office irrespective of where the life event took place. As the new provisions of the Civil Registration Act, 2004 have been introduced new practices and procedures relevant to them were drawn up. These were set out in various information leaflets and booklets which are available from the GRO, local registration offices and from the offices of voluntary and community organisations. They are also available on both the GRO website and that of the Health Service Executive.