Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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498. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government for a full list of all documents, reports, strategies, and resources that have been “unpublished” by his Department over the past ten years (details supplied), including all such materials that have been “unpublished” by divisions, sections and units of his Department that became part of the Minister’s Department following a transfer of functions; and who “unpublished” the materials under a different Minister or Department. [33810/25]

James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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There has been no systematic un-publishing or removal of information from my Department’s website.

There are two separate considerations regarding the perceived unavailability of documents.

My Department does not delete websites and included materials. If and when a website is deemed at the end-of-its life, it is moved to the where it remains readily accessible.

The web.archive.org/web/20170511150137/http:/rebuildingireland.ie/news/rebuilding-ireland-land-map/ was never part of the gov.ie website so it sits in a distinct but accessible location in the same archive.

The full details including maps ( ) can be accessed online.

web.archive.org/web/20210531160551/

web.archive.org/web/20170511150137/http:/rebuildingireland.ie/news/rebuilding-ireland-land-map/

Since the rebuildingireland.ie programme was replaced by the Housing for All programme in September 2021, website searches have brought users to the most appropriate page for up-to-date, relevant information on this topic i.e.:

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/campaigns/housing-for-all/

To ensure transparency, a wide range of reports continue to be available on gov.ie. This approach also ensures existing PQ responses to remain valid. For example:

Social Housing Construction Projects Status Report (since data set commences 2017) www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/collections/social-housing-construction-projects-status-reports/

Commencements data (since data set commences 2014)

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/publications/residential-commencement-notices/

Homelessness data (since this data set was compiled in 2014)

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-housing-local-government-and-heritage/collections/homelessness-data/#homelessness-data

The gov.ie website is the key source of information on government and public services. In April 2025, the website underwent a major system upgrade with 183,707 pages migrated, along with 9,737 images and 133,925 documents.

With a mass movement of web content, it is inevitable that some broken links will occur and take time to identify and resolve. An audit conducted post-migration revealed less than 1% of all pages were affected by broken links. Broken links were replaced with placeholder text: “Item has been unpublished or removed”, rather than returning an error message to the user.

The Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Reform and Digitalisation alerted my Department to the broken links on gov.ie after the migration and has provided a log of issues to be resolved. The resolution of these issue is ongoing.

Pending full resolution of this issue, anyone requiring access to a particular document affected by this issue is welcome to contact my Department.

In addition, the digital www.gov.ie/en/govie-team/services/archive-of-department-websites/ is available to review search for materials.