I am surprised that this issue is the responsibility of the Minister for Health and Children. I would have thought that it was more appropriate to the Department of Finance. The Minister of State will be, therefore, very well equipped to respond.
This issue has been brought to my attention by a professional genealogical organisation, Eneclann. It is a long running sore which has been the subject of a strong lobby for some time by the council of Irish genealogical organisations. It relates to the appalling state of the General Register Office for births, deaths and marriages in Dublin. I cannot believe that this has been allowed to continue when there are two very good reasons the condition of this office should be improved urgently.
The site is reminiscent of the Passport Office on Molesworth Street in the past with people queuing in all weathers on Westland Row to obtain certificates of births, marriages and deaths. Apparently, the Civil Service and the Government are cavalier about these physical difficulties. What is much worse, however, in terms of the overall economy is that genealogy is a growing industry which is being hampered by the fact that this office is a shambles. It is not an exaggeration to say that. Throughout the world genealogy is a fast growing industry. The expansion of the Internet has meant that the Irish diaspora wish to trace their ancestry. There are many young people, including Eneclann, a young company, who wish to develop this industry in Ireland through the Internet and modern technology, which is ideal, but cannot do so because this office is a shambles.
That is the main reason I bring this issue to the attention of the Minister of State. I know what he will say, but I hope he will give me more comfort than he gave Senator Taylor-Quinn. He will say that they are in the process of computerising this office and that it is understaffed, but that is not good enough. We should see a concrete timetable accompanied by guarantees for when supply will meet demand.
The Minister of State is aware of the length of the queues and difficulties people have to face. He is also aware of the extremely clumsy conditions in the public research room where it costs £1.50 to obtain a printout of an entry contained in the index for any five year period. He is further aware that there is a need to modernise the office to provide up-to-date library technology. This is a false economy as it takes a long time to collect £1.50 from everybody. The office is satisfying the demand to some extent by working overtime at weekends. There is a need for training and larger offices with up-to-date techniques to ensure demand is satisfied immediately.
A service such as this has real potential in the economy. There are over 40 million Irish people in the United States from where there is a demand for the export of this information. They are frustrated. The Minister of State and I have seen many US tourists queuing at this office looking for details of their ancestry dating back to 1864 and sometimes, having queued all day, they are unable to obtain the information that they need. If the distribution of information from this office could be speeded up, the entrepreneurs who are trying to operate a business with the information from this office would be able to supply it worldwide through the Internet, in particular to the Irish diaspora, the emigrants who left our shores and who often cannot return and for whom in the past crocodile tears were shed. That is not as true now as it was then, but a great deal of lip-service is paid to Irish emigrants in this and the other House. The best way to rectify this is by satisfying their demands through communications. This can be done simply by increasing the distribution of information from this office.
I am aware a project has been under way for some time to computerise the General Register Office, but it seems to be way behind and is not providing the efficiencies necessary. What is needed is an acceleration of the project. This makes economic sense. This is not a subsidy. If the money was spent and the necessary staff provided, people would be prepared to pay money to receive this information quickly. Genealogy is a vast worldwide industry and Ireland is in a position to exploit it because of the huge numbers of our people overseas. We are wasting a great opportunity by neglecting this extremely valuable resource.
