Vol. 517 No. 6
275 Mr. Shatter asked the Minister for Health and Children the cost to date of the work being undertaken at the General Register Office in Roscommon with regard to the computer imaging of the records of births, marriages and deaths; the original estimated costs; and the expected cost at the date of completion. [10671/00]
The work which is being carried out at the General Register Office in Roscommon involves the computerisation of all the historical records of the office dating back to 1845. The cost of the work undertaken to date amounts to £3.355 million. The original estimated cost was £3 million including the costs of the community employment scheme workers and the estimated cost at completion is £6.225 million. The original estimate of costs was based on a project providing training and employment through the community employment scheme and taking at least three years to complete. However, having regard to the scale and complexity of the project and the capacity of modern information technology to deal with old documents, a number of unanticipated issues arose and had to be resolved. Accordingly, initial progress was slower than estimated. The above mentioned community employment scheme ended in August 1999 and replacement staff are in the process of being recruited. It is now expected that the project will be completed in 2002.
