Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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648. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the progress that has been made in cataloguing the 70,000 boxes of uncatalogued material in the possession of the National Archives; the number of staff that have been assigned to this task; the number of new staff hired to assist in this work; if she will highlight all cases of record degradation that she has been made aware of; her views on the present quality and physical integrity of the records in storage; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [5601/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The National Archives is responsible by law for the acquisition of records of permanent value - referred to as statutory records - from Departments of State, the courts and 61 named bodies. The National Archives can also acquire archives from other sources, such as business, hospitals, charities and voluntary bodies, where it is considered that the archives are of outstanding quality and value. This can, on occasion, entail the rescue of archives that are in danger of destruction. I am advised that the National Archives has a historic backlog of approximately 70,000 boxes of archives, which need archival and preservation processing to varying degrees. These archives are non-statutory records and are held in safe and secure conditions but, in light of the pressure on resources, progress on cataloguing this historic backlog is likely to be slow.

I would like to make it clear that the National Archives annual intake of statutory records, amounting to some 5,000 boxes per annum, does not generate any backlog in cataloguing work and is catalogued within existing resources each year.

I am pleased that, after a number of years of funding reductions, I was in a position this year to increase the National Archives budget and, in addition, that sanction has been given to run a competition for additional archivists for the National Archives. I understand that these increased resources will be used, inter alia, to address the archiving backlog.

I am also very conscious that the storage capacity of the National Archives needs to be improved and, to that end, as part of its capital stimulus package, the Government agreed to provide funding this year for phase one of a development plan at the Archives headquarters in Bishop Street. The OPW will shortly go to tender for the project and it is anticipated that works could begin by mid-2015. This will greatly increase the storage capacity of the National Archives.