Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 366: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on the recent report on the shredding of historic and valuable documents, some dating from the late 19th century, which are to be destroyed as part of the Property Registration Authority's move toward e-conveyancing; the reason for destroying these valuable documents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4604/10]

Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)
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I am informed by the Property Registration Authority (PRA) that it has no plans to shred historic and valuable documents. Since 1981 the Land Registry has been creating a computerised register to replace the former paper register. As part of the process of computerisation all paper folios have been scanned and indexed and the full archive of the original paper folios dating back to 1891 is now safely stored off-site and preserved for posterity. These can be accessed for research purposes, if required.

The newspaper article to which the Deputy refers appeared in The Irish Times on 23 December, 2009. The documents referred to in this article were "Land Certificates" only. Section 73(1) of the Registration of Deeds and Title Act 2006 provided that no new Land Certificates should be issued after 1 January, 2007. Section 73(2) of the Act provided that with effect from 1 January, 2010, all Land Certificates should cease to have force or effect. However, in the three year period 1 January, 2007 to 31 December, 2009, existing Land Certificates continued to have full force and effect and for this reason they were required to be lodged with any application for registration (dealing) in the Land Registry and could not be returned to the lodging party on completion of the application.

It should be noted that in the vast majority of cases, Land Certificates are computer print-out copies of the title registers (folios) and have no particular historic significance or intrinsic value. However, in a number of cases where the Land Certificate had been lodged in the PRA with an application, requests were made to the PRA to preserve a Land Certificate because of its' historical or sentimental value to the lodging party. In addition, the PRA itself implemented a policy of review and identification of Land Certificates which might have a historical or particular archival interest. These Land Certificates have been preserved and are retained in the Customer Services Unit (CSU) in the PRA's Chancery Street office.

As section 73(2) of the Act came into effect on 1 January, 2010 any Land Certificate which was lodged with an application for registration up to 31 December, 2009 is being returned to the lodging party on completion of the application. Similarly, where a Land Certificate was retained in the PRA at the request of the registered owner, arrangements may now be made to return the Land Certificate to the person registered as the owner of the property as of 31 December, 2009. In all such cases the Land Certificate will be accompanied with a letter explaining that it is no longer a legal document of title and cannot be pledged by way of security for borrowings.