Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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358. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for a full list of all documents, reports, strategies, and resources that have been “unpublished” by his Department over the past ten years (details supplied), including all such materials that have been “unpublished” by divisions, sections and units of his Department that became part of the Minister’s Department following a transfer of functions; and who “unpublished” the materials under a different Minister or Department. [33805/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm that my Department has not actively ‘unpublished’ any relevant documents, reports, strategies, and resources over the past 10 years, notwithstanding any temporary, technical matter that would impact on website access which is resolved as soon as possible. I am wholly committed to the open publication of government information. The referenced article mentions content across the www.gov.ie website. My Department operates via a standalone website www.enterprise.gov.ie. Item no 7 referenced within that article is readily available at enterprise.gov.ie/en/news-and-events/department-news/2023/august/09082023.html and has never been actively ‘unpublished’ by my Department.

Press releases from my Department are also shared across the www.gov.ie website. Gov.ie is a trusted platform for Government communications, handling approximately 75 million page views in 2024 and was the key communications tool and information resource for the public during covid-19 in particular. The gov.ie information service now also incorporates the latest news and updates from government that were previously published on the merrionstreet.ie website. I wish to inform the Deputy that the gov.ie website underwent a major system upgrade in April 2025 with 183,707 pages migrated, along with 9,737 images and 133,925 documents. In a mass movement of web content, it is inevitable that some broken links will occur and that these will take time to identify and resolve. An audit conducted post-migration revealed less than 1% of all pages were affected by broken links. Any broken links were replaced with placeholder text, “Item has been unpublished or removed”, rather than returning an error. Government departments and public service bodies were alerted to the broken links on their pages and resolution of the issue is ongoing by these organisations.

I can assure the Deputy there is no coordinated campaign underway to suppress information nor has any systematic removal of links or documents taken place. The issue here is a technical one which is being actively worked on to resolve. Pending full resolution of this issue, if the Deputy or indeed any member of the public requires access to a particular document that is affected by this issue, they are welcome to contact my Department.