Vol. 458 No. 8
40 Mr. B. Ahern asked the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht the plans, if any, he has to relax the 30 year rule on the consultation of public documents in view of forthcoming legislation on freedom of information. [16037/95]
I have no specific proposals to change the provisions of this Act.
At present the National Archives Act, 1986 provides that records of Government Departments over 30 years old must, in general, be transferred to the control of the Director of National Archives.
Government Department files under 30 years old may, with the agreement of the Director of National Archives, be transferred to his control, but in general such files may not be made available by the director for public inspection until the 30 years has elapsed. However the number of such files transferred is insignificant.
There is also a provision in the 1986 Act stating that its provisions do not prohibit access to a file under 30 years old. Such access, upon request, may be sanctioned by a member of the Government responsible for the file in question. At the time of passing of the Act this power was envisaged to be used in very special circumstances only and that it was not to form the basis for a "freedom of information" policy which was regarded as altogether a separate matter, outside the ambit of the Act. On the question of freedom of information there are legislative proposals in course of preparation in the Office of the Tánaiste.
Any proposals to relax the 30 year rule would have to take account of the practical issue that any such reduction would lead to a great increase in the number of files coming under the control of the Director of National Archives. Such an increase would put severe pressure on the resources available to me, in terms of current storage space and staffing. Accordingly any time-limit reduction would have to take account of the practical difficulties involved. In the first instance, my priority must be to aid the director to perform his functions, as currently assigned, at the appropriate adequate level.
