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General Register Office

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 July 2019

Tuesday, 23 July 2019

Questions (2819)

Catherine Murphy

Question:

2819. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the rules regarding the duration of time that must pass before genealogical records held by the General Register Office can be made publicly available; and the statutory basis for these rules. [33852/19]

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Written answers

The General Register Office, which operates under the aegis of my Department, has worked in partnership with the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht to make available to the public historic register entries to aid family and genealogical research via the irishgenealogy.ie website.

Historic birth, marriage and death records are available free of charge to the public and researchers. Annual tranches of register entries are made available as they reach the legal threshold for release (designed to protect the privacy of the living).

The thresholds are set out in section 61 of the Civil Registration Act 2004, as amended. The thresholds are 100 years for births, 75 years for marriages and 50 years for deaths.

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

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