Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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Question 378: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the action he is taking to protect documents in the care of the Registry of Deeds in Dublin; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18083/09]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I am informed that Registry of Deeds documents have been preserved intact since 1707 in a building shared with the Honourable Society of the Kings Inns. A significant investment was made in upgrading this accommodation during the mid 1990's. A major part of this project involved a review of both the storage facilities for the records retained by the Registry and the level of access to those records by the public. The remedial work undertaken introduced a new system of secure and accessible shelving that was complementary to the building together with the installation of specialised temperature and humidity controls. A further preservation project to provide an additional safeguard to the documents began in 2007 and was completed in 2008. This involved filing the documents in secure archival boxes designed and manufactured to National Archives specifications.

In the case of Original Memorials, which are summaries of original deeds that are permanently retained in the Registry of Deeds, the Deputy might wish to note that these are not made available for public inspection. All Memorials from 1930 to date are available on microfilm and this record is normally used for providing copies. While in rare cases, the original Memorial is made available on request, the inspection is carried out under supervised conditions with a member of Registry of Deeds staff in attendance.

Public access to other records such as the Names Index, Lands Index and Transcript Books, is only available to customers in controlled conditions. Any person wishing to inspect these records must sign in at the reception area and sign out again when they leave the building. Access to the area where these books are stored is controlled by way of swipe cards which must be returned before the customer leaves the building.

I understand that, notwithstanding the improvements to the storage and access to the documents, there is excessive wear and tear on some of the documents in the Registry, especially the large index books. Much of this damage can be attributed to over-use of the documents by genealogical researchers who are among those that have been pressing for measures to preserve these documents. A possible solution to this problem is to make them available electronically and a firm of independent consultants has already carried out work on the development of such a project.

Their report in 2003 was basically a review of the Registry of Deeds service delivery, encompassing the preservation of its records and access for genealogical research. The consultants developed an e-Service Delivery Strategy which was intended to address day-to-day registration services but also to deal with the preservation of the historical records and to make them available on-line for genealogical searching. In 2006, a further independent evaluation on access to Registry of Deeds documentation and the future use of the Registry of Deeds building was carried out. The report recommended the scanning and indexing of the documents and records and, when this had been completed, to re-locate the documents to a more appropriate location.

The Deputy will appreciate that the implementation of either strategy dealing with the historical records is dependent on funding being made available. An associated issue relates to contingency and business continuity planning, in the event of a loss of the records. All of the current records going back to the 1930's are microfilmed. However, there are no copies of the earlier records which as stated above date from 1707.

Finally, a strategic objective of the Property Registration Authority is to advance the completion of the Land Register by extending Compulsory First Registration, while arresting the growth of unregistered titles. While this is a multi-year objective, its achievement will see the eventual phasing out of the Registry of Deeds from the conveyancing process and would enable the transfer of the documents to the National Archives Office.