asked the Minister for Justice why members of the public have to wait for upwards of an hour for service or to inspect folios in the general office of the Land Registry; and how soon the staff will be increased in number and the system so improved that the public will be no longer required to endure such bad service.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Land Registry Services.
139.
I am satisfied that members of the public do not have to wait for upwards of an hour for service in the public office of the Land Registry. Even at the busiest times, the longest a member of the public has to wait for service is normally about 10 minutes.
Exceptional delay of an hour or so arises only when the document sought for inspection is attached to a pending dealing, application, etc., and takes some time to locate. Reorganisation of the Land Registry, which is at an advanced stage, will include arrangements to make it considerably easier to locate a folio that is in action.
While I accept that the Minister is acting upon information received which, no doubt again, was presented to him in the belief that it was correct, would the Minister make further inquiries or have more careful observations made? My observations from personal experience and the observations of many members of the public are to the effect that waits of up to one hour in the Land Registry are the rule rather than the exception.
There are something like 700,000 folios in the Land Registry which are filed in numerical sequence in accordance with the different counties. The average of active folios being dealt with is approximately 15,000. A new system is being devised. Naturally, it is difficult, possibly, to locate some of these folios that are in action very quickly: there might be the odd case in which there would be long delay. I doubt if even the Deputy has not come across in his own office a file which he could not locate easily. If he did not, he is unique.
Not, thank God, as frequently as it happens in the Land Registry.