Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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265. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the cost per year for the past three years for the retrieval and return of hard copy files stored at off-site locations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9308/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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The main file store and Departmental Archive is located in premises in North Co. Dublin. Part of the duties of staff based there is the retrieval and return of hardcopy files stored at that premises. The related costs are set out below:

As part of the phased implementation of the 20 Year Rule in relation to the National Archives, four Departments have been identified for the initial implementation phase: the Departments of the Taoiseach; Justice and Equality; the Office of the Attorney General, and my own Department. Once the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs has collated all the necessary information, she will formulate an implementation plan in relation to the 20 Year Rule, which will then be brought to Cabinet. I strongly support the objectives of such a plan, one of which is to reduce the need for Departments to continue to allocate unnecessary resources to the storage of records that do not need to be retained permanently or that are eligible for transfer to the National Archives.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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266. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the cost per year for the past three years for the storage of data and-or files on cloud storage or third party servers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9406/17]

Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael)
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My Department has not incurred costs on the storage of corporate data on third party or cloud servers. I am aware of the benefits offered by cloud computing and any future activity in this area will be guided by the Public Service ICT Strategy.