1530. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Culture, Communications and Sport the plans to allow the National Library of Ireland to capture and archive .ie domain websites, or to require such work as part of its functions, in line with the Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) (Web Archive) Bill 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57370/26]

The principal functions of the National Library of Ireland (NLI), as laid out in Section 12 of the National Cultural Institutions Act 1997 are:

“to conserve, restore, maintain and enlarge the library material in the collection of the Library for the benefit of the public and to establish and maintain a record of library material (including material relating to the Irish language) in relation to Ireland and to contribute to the provision of access by members of the public to material relating to other countries.”

Before outlining the position with regard to the capturing or archiving of .ie domain websites, it is useful to explain the concept of legal deposit.

Legal Deposit is a statutory obligation on publishers to deposit at least one copy of every publication, free of charge, in a designated library - a legal deposit library. It is relied upon to ensure that the published output of the State is collected systematically and preserved by prescribed institutions so that citizens and researchers, within the country and abroad, are guaranteed permanent access to the intellectual and cultural memory of the nation. Deposited publications are made available to users of the deposit libraries on their premises.

Legal deposit of publications produced by Irish publishers is provided for in Section 198 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 (as amended). Under this provision, a copy of each book, newspaper and periodical published in the State must be deposited with the NLI, seven Irish university libraries, the British Library and, on request, four British university libraries.

Digital legal deposit came into effect in Ireland in 2019 with the Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019. Section 29 inserted a new Section 198(4A) into the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 giving the Board or authorities of copyright deposit institutions the right to give notice in writing to publishers requesting that a digital publication be deposited as if the digital publication was a book referred to in section 198(1), and that the publisher shall comply with the request.

Here ‘digital publication’ encompasses online content first published in the State and made available to the public, including publications which may require payment, e.g. e-books, online newspapers, online periodicals and journals, but does not include the majority of online content. The definition also encompasses a wider range of material, including offline digital or electronic publications not made available through the World Wide Web, e.g. material distributed on DVD.

‘Digital legal deposit’, undertaken through direct requests to publishers, does not account for the preservation of the vast majority of other material made available online. The 2019 Act does not make a provision for the NLI or any other institution to directly download websites or other forms of online digital publications without first making a request to the publisher or rights-holder.

Extending the ‘deposit’ approach currently in place for physical and digital publications to the majority of online content is unrealistic and not feasible for the NLI and website owners alike. Equally it is impracticable and difficult to obtain consent or to engage individually with each website owner (or publisher).

There is currently no provision in Irish legislation in relation to collection or preservation of Irish internet content. Web archiving can only be undertaken with permission from the website owner or rights holder.

However, Section 108 of Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019 requires that the Government “bring forward a report on the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme to serve as a web archive for .ie domain contents and advise on steps taken towards that goal”.

My Department has engaged with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, which has responsibility for matters in relation to copyright legislation, in connection with this issue. It is anticipated that a Public Consultation on a Digital Legal Deposit Scheme for Web Preservation will be published in the near future. The consultation will seek public and stakeholder views on the implementation of such a scheme, and these views will be included in the final report to meet the obligation under Section 108 of Copyright and Other Intellectual Property Law Provisions Act 2019. The report will address the feasibility of establishing a digital legal deposit scheme for web archiving, and make any appropriate recommendations in this regard.