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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 16 Apr 2003

Vol. 565 No. 4

Written Answers. - General Register Office.

Denis Naughten

Question:

143 Mr. Naughten asked the Minister for Health and Children the plans he has to abolish the local registrar of births, deaths and marriages; if he intends to only have a registrar on a county basis; when approval will be given for the payment of fees to the local registrars; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11289/03]

My Department and the Department of Social and Family Affairs are engaged in a major project to modernise the civil registration service. The project has developed new information systems, procedures and legislation to facilitate the electronic registration of vital events including births, stillbirths, deaths, marriages and adoptions and the electronic production of certificates. Archival records held by the General Register Office are being converted to an electronic format in a separate project in Roscommon.

The implementation of a modern civil registration service is at the heart of providing better public services to citizens through the Government's modernisation programme. It is a key building block underpinning the integration of public service delivery and e-Government objectives of providing more convenient access to services. The new service will facilitate the sharing of information between Government agencies. Future registration of vital events will include a personal public service number, PPS No., which will be used as a unique customer reference number by public service providers, thereby facilitating opportunities for streamlining the provision of services from other Departments and public service organisations, as appropriate. At present a life event may only be registered in the district in which it occurred and this limits the access to copies of the records. It is proposed in future to improve access by allowing registration to take place in any registrar's office. Similar provisions will apply in relation to the issue of certificates. The number of offices located in each county and the number of registrars will be determined by reference to the needs of a particular area.

The legal changes necessary to enable the direct electronic registration of births and deaths and the holding of birth, death and marriage records in an electronic format were included in the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002. Other provisions required to facilitate the wider modernisation of the registration service are being included in a new Civil Registration Bill, the drafting of which is currently being finalised. The new system has been successfully piloted during December 2002-January 2003 and the roll-out of the system is due to commence in June 2003.

During the course of the development of the project, consultations were held with a number of interests including service providers, other bodies directly associated with the provision of the registration service, groups representing users of the service who had responded to the consultation document and representatives of the unions involved.
Persons appointed as registrars, who are not permanent and pensionable employees of the health boards, derive income from fees for registrations and fees for the certificates issued by them. These fees are set out in statutory instruments including SI 278 of 1987, which sets out the principal fees for the registration of events and the issue of certificates. In particular and limited circumstances a registrar may issue a certificate which is compiled from an entry in a register, in which amendments have been made, and the fees for such certificates are set out in SI 234 of 1987.
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