Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)
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Question 122: To ask the Minister for Defence his views on digitising the aerial photographic archives of the Defence Forces for publication on the Internet in view of the educational and heritage value of these archives and the popularity of free modern aerial imagery technologies (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10965/10]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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The Air Corps provides an aerial photographic service for the Defence Forces. Photographs produced at the request of the military authorities were done so for security or Air Corps operational reasons. They were never produced or categorised with a view to making them available to the public. In the past, the Air Corps provided an aerial photographic service to Ordnance Survey Ireland. This arrangement is now discontinued but Ordnance Survey Ireland may be able to provide information on the photographs retained by it.

There are no plans in place to commence a project to publish the aerial photographs held by the Defence Forces. Aside from security issues involved, it would require significant expenditure of manpower and resources which could not be justified in the current circumstances.