The name of the complainant has been changed to protect his identity.
The Complaint
In July 2008 the Ombudsman received a complaint from Mr Andrew Johnson. Mr Johnson was a member of a local Heritage and Historical Society. The society was in the process of writing the history of a town in County Westmeath and wished to examine the death registers for the area from 1864 to 1900 for the purpose of establishing the occupations of local people from that time.
The death registers were held in a regional office of the Civil Registration Service (CRS) (See Note 1 below). The CRS maintains all records of births, deaths and marriages in Ireland. Statutory responsibility for the administration of the CRS rests with the Registrar General. His Office, the General Register Office (GRO), operates under the Department of Social Protection and is the central repository for records of life events (births, deaths and marriages) occurring in the State. For the sake of clarity this report uses the term ‘General Register Office’ when referring to the actions of the GRO or the Civil Registration Service.
The GRO informed Mr Johnson that it could not facilitate his request. Initially the GRO said that the office did not have the staffing resources required. It said that Mr Johnson could have copies of the death registers provided he supplied the name of each of the deceased, and the date and place of death, together with €6 for each uncertified copy of the death register (or €10 for a certified copy).
Mr Johnson was particularly interested in identifying those registers which indicated that the individual was a craftsman. In order for Mr Johnson to achieve this he would have had to pay for, and examine, a copy of the register for every death that occurred between 1864 and 1900. Mr Johnson pointed out that twelve months previously it was possible to examine the actual registers for an hour by booking in advance and paying a small fee. That facility had been withdrawn.
Preliminary Examination
The Ombudsman commenced a preliminary examination of the complaint and contacted the General Register Office.
The GRO reiterated the response it had given Mr Johnson and added that, following a review of health and safety standards in its Mullingar office, (the only office where research facilities were available in that region) it had ceased the practice of allowing public access to historical registers. It had issued a notice to the public to this effect in June 2007. It added that research was not a core function of the local registration office and that the GRO maintained a research facility at its office in the Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street in Dublin. The facility in Dublin allowed for searches of indexes to birth, death and marriage records and for obtaining photocopies of records identified from indexes.
However, access to indexes alone would not have facilitated Mr Johnson. An index to a register contains the names, dates and places where particular events took place only. While this can be sufficient information to enable particular entries in the registers to be identified, they do not contain any additional information, for example the occupation of the deceased, which Mr Johnson was interested in, or the cause of death (see Appendix 1 for an example of a typical index and register).
The GRO referred to the Civil Registration Act 2004 and said that access to the registers by any person other than certain officials of the GRO (such as the Registrar General or Superintendent Registrars) was prohibited by that Act. Therefore, the GRO said, it could not give direct access to the registers of births, deaths and marriages to any member of the public.
In her preliminary examination, the Ombudsman found that there was no explicit prohibition on access in the manner sought by Mr Johnson. The Ombudsman also discovered that the level of public access to such records appeared to vary around the country. In Waterford the death and marriage registers for County Waterford for the period 1864 to the early 1900s had been copied by the county library and are accessible through its library service. The Waterford death registers are also available online at www.waterfordcountylibrary.ie.
There is also the fact that a large number of birth, death and marriage indexes from Ireland have been made available by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints which had been allowed to microfilm the indexes. It seems that volunteers from the Church were given access to the Irish indexes in the 1960s and the records, that were microfilmed, were made available by them through the Church’s Family History Centres and its website www.familysearch.org. The Church claims to have access to over 26 million Irish records ranging from 1620 to the present day.
The restriction in access also seemed to be inconsistent with the approach adopted by the National Archives in publishing the 1901 and 1911 Censuses online and free of charge. These census returns contained information that was at least equally sensitive as the information contained in death registers, for example information on levels of literacy. It also appeared that other jurisdictions give greater access to similar records of a similar age. For example, in Scotland (www.scotlandspeoplehub.gov.uk), in England and Wales (www.directgov.uk) and in British Columbia, Canada (www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca) many historical life event registers or indexes are available online.
The Ombudsman was aware of the practice of other public bodies in Ireland that held important public records. The Department of Education and Science provided research access to its archive of records relating to reformatories and industrial schools which resulted in the publication of the book ‘Suffer Little Children’ and the related television series ‘States of Fear’. The records to which the Department provided access were far more sensitive than those sought by Mr Johnson.
In light of the above the Ombudsman wrote to the Registrar General of the GRO on 8 January 2009 and asked that it review its position with a view to granting Mr Johnson access to the local death registers for 1864 to 1900.
On 12 January 2009 the Registrar General replied that he was seeking legal advice on the issues raised by the Ombudsman. On 7 August 2009 the Registrar General replied that his Office could not accede to Mr Johnson’s request and referred specifically to sections 61 and 66 of the Civil Registration Act 2004.
The Ombudsman informed Mr Johnson of the GRO’s response and the outcome of the preliminary examination of his complaint. The Ombudsman considered that the actions of the GRO were likely to affect a considerable number of people. It appeared that access to valuable public records may be restricted, and legitimate historical and social research might be hindered. Furthermore, the GRO’s position appeared at odds with the practice of equivalent bodies internationally and with the actual practice by some public bodies in Ireland.
Section 4(2)(b) of the Ombudsman Act 1980 provides that the Ombudsman may investigate any action taken by or on behalf of a public body within her remit if the action has or may have adversely affected a person and the action was or may have been:
“(i) taken without proper authority,
(ii) taken on irrelevant grounds,
(iii) the result of negligence or carelessness,
(iv) based on erroneous or incomplete information,
(v) improperly discriminatory,
(vi) based on an undesirable administrative practice, or
(vii) otherwise contrary to fair or sound administration.”
Given the importance of the issue, the Ombudsman decided to commence an ‘own initiative’ investigation in accordance with section 4(3)(b) of the Ombudsman Act 1980 which allows the Ombudsman investigate an action of a public body notwithstanding the fact that a complaint has not been made to her.
Note 1:
The Health Service Executive is responsible for management of the CRS at a local level.