Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 14 Oct 2003

Vol. 572 No. 3

Written Answers. - Departmental Records.

Ruairí Quinn

Question:

497 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for the Environment Heritage and Local Government if his Department has a corporate policy, a departmental strategy and an electronic document and record management system in place in connection with electronic records; the system in place to preserve electronic records for the future; and if this system allows for the easy searching of records in order to comply with the requirements of and the implementation of the freedom of information legislation and the relevant national archives legislation. [22839/03]

Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (Mr. Cullen)

The management of all records, electronic and paper, in my Department is governed by the requirements of the freedom of information legislation and the National Archive Acts and corporate policy and practice is aimed at achieving compliance with the legislation.

In relation to electronic records, my Department's ICT strategy recognises the importance of having state of the art electronic storage and retrieval facilities in place. Consequently, the Department's ICT infrastructure has been upgraded to provide a storage area network, SAN, which provides high capacity resilient data storage, archive and data back-up facilities. In addition, a number of large electronic databases are in place for specific areas of the Department's business. These large databases, which hold the national vehicle and driver information, salaries and financial information and human resource files, have purpose built record storage and retrieval facilities.

In other areas in my Department the paper file is the main record storage medium and the policy and practice is to print electronically created documents and place them on the file.