Vol. 501 No. 6
71 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands the proposals, if any, she has to preserve and record the school registers of Ireland in conjunction with the Department of Education and Science, the National Archives and the National Library; the meetings, if any, she has had with the Department of Education and Science in this regard; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6914/99]
I do not consider that the issue raised in the question is of relevance to the National Library and I have not had any meeting with the Minister for Education and Science on this subject.
National school registers do not have the status of departmental records for the purposes of the National Archives Act, 1986. Consequently there is in general no statutory requirement for them to be transferred to the National Archive. However, considerable quantities of school registers were transferred to the National Archives by the Department of Education in July 1993 and March 1994. In addition a smaller number of registers have been transferred to the National Archives by individual schools. In all registers of more than 400 national schools are now held in the National Archives and are available for public inspection there. However, the National Archives has advised the Department of Education and Science which has led to the carrying out of a survey by questionnaire of the records still held by national schools. The results of this survey should provide a sound basis for informing future policy concerning the preservation of the records.
In the meantime while the National Archives would be glad to accept further transfers of registers from individual schools, in the longer term it may be more appropriate that school registers be transferred to local authority archives services now being established in many counties. While school registers are of national importance, they are primarily local records and should, if possible, be preserved by the appropriate local authority as part of their archives services.
