Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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23. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the supports her Department is making available to the National Library of Ireland in its impending task of placing the entire collection of church records online; the estimated time frame for this project; the staff resources which will be involved; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16821/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The National Library of Ireland (NLI) is a statutorily independent body. While my Department provides funding to the national cultural institutions, the management and board of each institution are responsible for all operational matters and I do not have a statutory function in respect of such day-to-day matters. It is the responsibility of the management and the board of each institution to determine the spending priorities for their individual institutions, based on the resources available to them.

I understand that to date the cost of the digitisation of the Church Records and the staffing required to undertake the project has been met from within the existing resources of the National Library. The Board of the NLI inform me that they plan to launch the new website containing the images of the Church Records during the Summer of 2015.