Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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26. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she is aware of the serious challenges which exist to the proper digital preservation of records at the National Archives; her views that the urgent onus should be on the prompt preservation of such records to best international standard to eliminate the risk of degradation over time and counter inevitable technological obsolescence; if she is further aware that the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland practises its digital preservation models to the Records Management Standard; if there is a comparable standard in operation in the State; the cross-Border co-operation that exists in this regard; if she is considering increasing the financial allocation to the National Archives to aid it to overcome these specific challenges; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39542/15]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The care and management of electronic records and the preservation of digital material is a challenge for the National Archives and the other cultural institutions. Earlier this year the National Archives joined the Digital Preservation Coalition to better prepare itself for the development of a digital preservation strategy and to ensure it adopts the appropriate and relevant standards in this area. The National Archives is in ongoing conversation with PRONI (Public Records Office Northern Ireland) and a member of the National Archives staff was on the review group for PRONIs digital repository in advance of its operational roll out.

In this regard, the Office of Government Chief Information Officer and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform are working with the National Archives on a strategy and associated plan in relation to the electronic management and preservation of digital records. It is felt that a collaborative approach based on a pilot and phased implementation of electronic record keeping systems would have benefits across the civil service.

To assist with this project, I was delighted to be in a position to provide the National Archives with a special allocation of €150,000 in 2016 to commence work on the project.

In addition, as part of the Decade of Commemorations programme, the Government agreed to provide funding for the first phase in a capital development plan at the National Archives. €8m has been made available for the purposes of this capital development, which will shortly go to tender. Construction is expected to start in 2016. This development will address many of the longstanding issues with the National Archives headquarters.