Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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44. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence when his Department will publish the next tranche of military service pension records from the period 1916 to 1923; and the amount of material expected to be released as part of the centenary programme. [33654/16]

Paul Kehoe (Wexford, Fine Gael)
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The Military Service (1916-1923) Pensions Collection (MSPC) project is a joint Department of Defence and Defence Forces contribution to the Decade of Centenaries. The project is mandated to release the files and records of the Department of Defence dealing with the service of qualifying members of the Irish Volunteers, the Irish Citizen Army, the Hibernian Rifles, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann and the Irish Republican Army from the period April 1916 to the 30^thof September 1923. This involves cataloguing and partially digitising nearly 300,000 files.

This project was initiated in 2008 and will extend to 2023. Since January 2014 there have been a number of online releases of material from the collection. A recent online release coincided with the opening of the new Military Archives Facility on 26^thApril this year. This release was comprised of the Medals Series Database from the Collection and its associated files. It included details of those who applied for the 1916 Medal and the Service (1917-1921) Medal which recognised those who were engaged in active service during the 1916 Rising and those who served during the period 1917-1921. Work on the collection is ongoing, however, no date has been set as yet for the next tranche of material to be made public.