Sir, – I note that Minister for Heritage Heather Humphreys is in the process of introducing the National Archives (Amendment) Bill 2017. This proposed legislation will provide the flexibility for certain departments to transfer records to the National Archives for public release after 20 years rather than the current 30 years.
I would like to remind the Minister of an undertaking by a previous holder of her office Jimmy Deenihan) to facilitate the early release of the 1926 census, the first taken by the Irish State. In a statement by Mr Deenihan on March 9th, 2012 he indicated that legislation [to digitise the census] had been approved by the Cabinet
. By the end of 2012 the legislation was still not in place but the Minister continued to indicate that the government planned to release the records in time for the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. Other than the introduction of a private member’s Bill “Statistics (1916 Rising Centenary) Bill 2016” in May 2016 there has been no progress on releasing the 1926 census.
So in the context of the “early” release of records that the Minister is currently undertaking, perhaps she would give serious thought to bridging the census publication gap between 1911 and 1926, thus giving a window on a period that covered some of the most significant events in our history, the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, partition and the creation of the State, and the Civil War. – Yours, etc,
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MICHAEL GANNON,
Thomas’s Square, Kilkenny.