Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 November 2020
11. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media if she will consider revising the 100-year rule and bring forward the date for publication of the 1926 Census to 2021. [37322/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraSince the publication online of the 1901 and 1911 Census returns, a huge volume of records have now been made available online that are invaluable to people in carrying out their own family history research. On my Departments website; www.irishgenealogy.ie, it is now possible to view the historic Civil Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths which date back to 1864 and in the case of non-Roman Catholic Church marriages as far back as 1845. In total there are over 15 million entries available to view and each year a further year of records is added to the website. This along with the images of Roman Catholic Church register entries for the 19th and 18th Centuries available online on the National Library of Ireland website contain a huge of information for people to carry out their family history research. I am also pleased to announce that the Church of Ireland Representative Church Body Library is making great strides in its digitisation programme, and its Church registers will also be available in the future on the Departments website www.irishgenealogy.ie.
I am pleased to inform the Deputy that a significant body of information from the 1926 census has been collated and published by the Central Statistics Office on its website. There are hundreds of tables giving details of the size, age, gender, occupations, housing, dependency, and the speaking of Irish in the population of the State in 1926. These tables are available at the Central Statistics Office website (cso.ie)
The 1926 Census was the first undertaken by the newly independent Irish State, just four years after the Treaty was signed and three years after the end of the Civil War. It is an historic collection of great value and interest for historians, researchers, the general public and Diaspora and I too look forward to its publication.
While information is available on religion, occupation and conjugal situations of the general populace, under the Statistics Act 1993, information on an individual identifiable person, cannot be released until 100 years after the date on which the census was taken. This means that it will not be possible to publish information on individuals from the 1926 Census in 2021.
The 100 years exemption is seen by some as undermining the original guarantee of confidentiality given to householders. However, it is generally accepted that 100 years was a reasonable compromise in all the circumstances, including having regard to increasing life expectancy.
In order to make the 1926 Census available for publication, work will be required to collate, conserve, index and digitise these original census returns. Officials from my Department, which includes the National Archives, have already carried out detailed preliminary examinations of the work required.
I fully anticipate that information relating to individuals taken in the 1926 Census will be ready for public release at the end of the statutory period in 2026 and I look forward to its release.
