I am pleased to have an opportunity to respond to my two good friends, Deputies Crowley and Sheehan from Cork, who have made a very strong case on behalf of the farmers in their area. Obviously this is a matter in which all of us are interested. I would like to make a number of points in reply to the issues raised by the Deputies. First, I wish to put on record that the staff in the Land Registry are first class and have displayed an admirable devotion to duty. They have been trying very hard to reduce delays in the registry, with some success, as I shall explain later.
Basically, the arrears arose due to the need for the registry, like other services, to comply with Government policy in relation to staffing which operated throughout the public service in the 1980s. As in other areas of the public service, staffing levels had to be reduced while the volume of business increased — a quite significant increase in the case of the registry. Governments were aware that the policy of containing numbers would pinch — in some cases quite severely — but were also faced with the imperative of containing public expenditure in the longer term interests of the economy as a whole. It would, I think, be acknowledged fairly widely that the public service staff limitation, or "numbers" policy, though painful, was one of the elements which contributed in a significant way towards the improvement in the general state of our public finances in recent years.
Since 1990 our capacity to ease the staffing problem in the registry has been improving. Additional staff have been appointed and a considerable investment is being made in computerisation and information technology. Over each of the past four years annual output in the Land Registry has exceeded the annual intake of business, thus reducing the arrears level. To illustrate this I will refer to figures for "dealings", which is the most important category of business transacted in Land Registry.
At the end of 1989 the total arrears in dealing was 51,145. At the end of last year the corresponding figure was 41,828, representing an improvement of some 18.2 per cent. At present the average time taken to have a dealing processed in the registry is between 16 weeks and 24 weeks, depending on complexity and geographic location, and this is continuing to improve.
While accepting that there have been problems with the registry and that it has not been in a position to provide the speed of service which is required, I must also point out that it sometimes unfairly gets the blame for delays when the fault actually lies elsewhere. For whatever reason, some solicitors, when lodging applications with the registry on behalf of clients, seem in many cases to get them wrong.
Handling of the large volume of incorrect and-or incomplete applications which are received in the registry gives rise to non-productive work and represents poor utilisation of the registry's scarce resources. Management, in co-operation with the Law Society, have made efforts to bring about improvement in the quality of work lodged. However, the results to date have been disappointing. This is a matter which will have to be tackled and is something which requires further action by solicitors and the Law Society. The registry is most anxious to assist solicitors in any way they can to improve matters.
That is the background to the problems at the Land Registry. As to solutions and as to the future, these lie in the Government's decision to reconstitute the Land Registry and its sister, the Registry of Deeds, as a commercial State-sponsored body. For the registries to be run effectively and to deliver the kind of service the public needs and expects they need the freedom which semi-State status will confer on them. There are at present well in excess of 500 staff working in the registries. It is a highly labour intensive operation with great scope for computerisation.
What is needed is therefore not necessarily more staff but perhaps more investment in technology and business orientation. In this regard, progress towards conversion of the registries is well under way. Following on the Government decision that the Land Registry and the Registry of Deeds should be reconstituted as a commercial semi-State enterprise, an interim board — whose chairman and members have a wide range of business expertise — was appointed in July 1992 to assist and advise on the procedures and the legislative changes that will be necessary to bring about the conversion.
Additionally, a comprehensive programme for the introduction of the most up-to-date information technology and computerisation of a wide range of procedures at the registries is being implemented. This, combined with the tight management of scarce resources, is contributing to an improvement in the standard of services provided to the public.
Steady progress is also being made in preparing a portion of the Land Registry's operations for decentralisation to Waterford in accordance with Government policy. A site is available in Waterford and inquiries have been received from interested developers with a view to building office premises. The Government's programme provides for the transfer of 150 to 200 civil servants to the beautiful city of Waterford.
