527 Deputy Olivia Mitchell asked the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the cost of the digitisation of the parish records recently put on-line by the Irish Family History Foundation; the way the money was channelled and to whom; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11468/08]

The Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF) is a private umbrella organisation for the majority of local genealogy centres established throughout the island of Ireland. The IFHF does not receive any direct subvention from my Department.

Since the establishment of my Department in 2002, Irish Genealogy Limited (IGL) has been the body through which funding has been provided for the local genealogy centres including those affiliated to the IFHF. Details of the funding provided by my Department to IGL are referred to in the response to parliamentary question No. 267 of the 13th February 2008. This funding was disbursed on a number of projects primarily relating to computer hardware and software upgrades and improving the network infrastructure in the local genealogy centres and indexing of the centres' data. These projects were targeted at safeguarding the work already completed by the local genealogy centres.