Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 June 2023
112. Deputy Emer Higgins asked the Minister for Social Protection the reason that the General Register Office at Werburgh Street, Dublin 8, is only open to the public for one day a week; if she is aware of plans to extend the opening hours to assist the public; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28664/23]
View answerThe General Register Office (GRO) is the central repository for records relating to births, stillbirths, adoptions, marriages, civil partnerships and deaths in Ireland.
It operates a research facility at Werburgh Street, Dublin 2, where both professional researchers and members of the public, involved in family research, may search the indexes to the registers held by GRO and purchase photocopies of entries in the registers.
The research room holds bound volumes of indexes to the registers of births (since 1865), adoptions (since 1953), deaths (since 1865) and marriages (since 1844). Each volume represents a specific period of registrations and a customer, upon payment of the required fee, can look through the relevant volume(s) in order to find the index to the civil registration entry they require. The number of paper based index records is estimated at around 30 million.
During the Covid-19 pandemic the research room was closed to the public and an alternative method of allowing access to the indexes had to be provided. A new system via a dedicated email service was created. This service allowed staff of the research room to utilize an electronic version of the registration records ,which is not available to the public, to provide a quicker and more efficient service at no additional cost to the customer.
The new email service allows greater speed and accuracy when dealing with searches, and has proven to be extremely popular. The service is managed 5 days a week, it accesses all of the civil registration records up to present day and customer searches are frequently provided on a same day service.
Historical records of births from 1864 to 1922; marriages from 1845 to 1947; and deaths from 1871 to 1972 can also be viewed online at www.irishgenealogy.ie.
Currently, the research facility is open one day per week. Any increase in the current opening hours of the research facility at Werburgh St would impact on the capacity of the GRO to respond quickly to email requests and would lead to a reduction in customer service.
I trust this clarifies the issue for the Deputy.
