Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 April 2024
1040. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will make the Land Commission records public; the progress made to date in digitising these records; and his rationale for the delay in providing the public with access to these records. [15155/24]
View answerThe Records Branch of my Department houses the Land Commission records. The entire collection is estimated to number anywhere between 8 and 11 million individual documents all of which will first have to be identified and catalogued before they can be made available to the public. Granting public access to the records in advance of them being identified and catalogued would not be prudent or responsible and would greatly diminish the ability of my Department to keep the documents safe from loss, damage and deterioration.
Digitisation of the entire collection of Land commission records has now been ruled out as simply not being feasible or practical given the very significant numbers and diversity of documents involved.
Instead, my Department is currently working with Officials from the National Archives in relation to identifying and cataloguing the Land Commission records with a view to ultimately transferring the collection to the National Archive from where the records can eventually be made available to the public. The public can expect Land Commission records to start transferring to the National Archive within about 2 years and being made available to the public thereafter. Additional records will transfer to the National Archives at scheduled intervals thereafter with the entire collection ultimately transferring within an estimated 10-15 year timeframe.
