Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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387. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the amount collected by the Land Registry in respect of fees chargeable for searches and urgent searches in the past two years to date in 2022. [37123/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Property Registration Authority (PRA), which is under the aegis of my Department, continued to maintain a high level of service to support a robust property market throughout the period of COVID-19 restrictions.

Landdirect.ie is an online service, provided by the PRA, to enable the public to search a map and identify a property with corresponding folio numbers from the National Land Registry. There is no charge to search online and view a limited amount of information relating to a property, such as the folio number and any pending applications for registration. As reported in the PRA Annual Report 2021, activity on landdirect.ie amounted to approximately 12.5 million events in 2021, an increase of 16.6% over 2020.

A Copy of a Folio is open to the public to view for a fee of €5, or to request a certified copy of the Folio / Title Plans for a fee of €40. Any person entitled to inspect a copy of an Instrument can request a copy for a fee of €40.

Fees collected for applications for Copy Folio and Copy Instruments combined are detailed below, broken out by online applications using the paperless ‘P’ process or postal (paper) applications using the ‘C’ application process. Please note that the PRA cannot provide a further breakdown of fees collected based on whether the search was considered urgent or otherwise.

Members of the public can search records at the Registry of Deedsin a number of ways: Official Search (by a Registry Officer), Hand Search (by an individual), or Online. In line with Government restrictions, the Registry of Deeds building was closed to public access for a period of time over the past 2 years. However, all copying and official search services remained available to customers.

The fees collected for all types of searches combined at the Registry of Deeds are outlined by year below.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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388. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the amount on an annual basis that the Land Registry has expended in respect of rental space for off-site file and document storage; if his attention has been drawn to delays in retrieving documents requested; and his plans to address this issue. [37124/22]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Property Registration Authority (PRA) which is under the aegis of my Department continued to provide essential services to support the property market throughout Covid-19 restrictions.

The procurement and payment of rent for off-site file and document storage space is a matter for the Office of Public Works (OPW).

In 2021, overall completions of applications had recovered to 90% of pre-pandemic levels. Notwithstanding this level of activity, there has been an accumulation of arrears in the period and currently ‘C’ applications for Copy Instrument requests, which are lodged by post with the PRA, are taking a number of weeks to complete.

It is recommend that the paperless 'P' process be used by Solicitors in all applicable cases, to ensure timely receipt of Copy Instruments. Under the paperless ‘P’ application process a copy of the Instrument is issued within 7 working days when the Instrument is readily available.

The PRA is always willing to act on requests from lodging parties to expedite an application pending in the Land Registry and every effort is made to expedite cases where valid grounds for urgency exist. Any ‘C’ application for Copy Instrument that is not eligible to be requested online using the ‘P’ application process can be expedited by way of a letter from the lodging party.

An Arrears Clearance Programme has been set in train by the PRA Management Board, and cross-organisational multidisciplinary teams have been established to focus on the elimination of delays across all business units. This programme, underpinned by project management discipline, envisages a radical, structured approach to implementation, with an emphasis on data analysis, innovation and business process improvement. The PRA intends to communicate this intent, and ongoing progress achieved, to both internal and external stakeholders.