Sir, - Genealogists have been loudly complaining about the General Register Office on and off since 1991. In recent years the complaints have had to do with practicalities in its Public Search Room - primarily overcrowding, understaffing and the gradual reduction of service to the point where the public can no longer conduct research with any semblance of efficiency.
GRO users have made representations, individually and collectively, to the GRO management and the Department of Health. The matter has been raised in the Dail and the Seanad numerous times. The Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations has made detailed recommendations on how the GRO crisis could be alleviated speedily and with relative economy. Approximately 4,000 signatures have been gathered in support of these proposals. Family historians from all over the globe have also e-mailed the Department demanding a response. And the response? A deafening silence.
One of the "Principles of Quality Customer Service" in the Department of Health's "Customer Service Action Plan 1998-1999" is to "provide a structured approach to meaningful consultation with, and participation by, the customer in relation to the development, delivery and review of services". The GRO management does not seem to understand the meaning of consultation. It closed the Public Search Room on Friday May 19th and Monday 22nd for "refurbishment". The ultimate result of this exercise has been the removal of the index volumes from direct public access. What this means in real terms is that users of the GRO (which is open for only five hours and 15 minutes a day) now spend half their research time queuing for books which used to be available on a self-service basis. Similarly, the long-suffering Search Room staff are needlessly spending most of their time dispensing these books.
GRO users are now in a world beyond frustration. We demand that the Minister for Health, Mr Michleal Martin, and the Registrar General, Mr Tony Enright, immediately implement the proposals made to the Department by CIGO in December 1999. - Yours, etc.,
Daniel Beaumont, Pamela Bradley, Vivien Costello, (The first three of 41 names of regular GRO users, arranged in alphabetical order), Fisherman's Wharf, Dublin 4.