CIGO PRESS RELEASE

Outrage at drastic cost increases for Birth, Marriage & Death certificates . The Department of Health is set to levy a hefty increase on search facilities at the General Register Office, Joyce House, Dublin, (GRO). Students & holiday makers will face a large hike in the price for certificates essential for passports, colleges & employment. Those, of the Irish people, tracing their roots face a whopping increase of 200% in the cost of research facilities at Joyce House. The department through the introduction of new and punitive charges for these services is determined to insure that family history (a basic human & civil right) is to become the preserve of well healed tourists or the rich here in Ireland. The Minister, Mr Brian Cowan T.D., in agreeing to this massive increase is poised to deal a final blow to kill off roots tourism in Ireland, already reeling from the recent negative fall out of the Comptroller & Auditor General's 'value for money' report on the Irish Genealogical Project, now with the Oireachtas committee on public finances.

The Council of Irish Genealogical Organisations (CIGO) has been unable to obtain commitments from the Department on increased public access to these records or indeed a marked improvement in productivity at Joyce House. These vital records dating from 1845 are utilised in the two basic functions of the office: issuing of certified copies of Birth, Death & Marriage records to the public; family and social history research.

There appears on close examination no basis to justify these exceptional and damaging increases should the Department concentrate on its core function of registration and certification at the GRO. In the spirit of openness and public accessibility to genealogical heritage the Minister should sanction access to the archive resources of the GRO in accordance with the National Archives Act of 1986 and refrain from penalising the ordinary citizen in the pursuit of fiscal rectitude in his department.

28th August 1997