A new computerised document imaging system for the Land Registry was launched today by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr Michael McDowell.
The system, which includes state-of-the-art technology, will store and display images of land ownership records. The Registry's paper records of land ownership, some of which go back to when the organisation was founded in 1892, will be fully digitised.
Mr McDowell, in welcoming the development, noted that the Registries focus on improving customer service through technological exploitation is a lead which is now becoming a pattern throughout the public service.
"These kinds of systems were very much part of the plans for e-Government.
"Very few organisations," he said, "can boast of the Registries leading edge approach to using the Internet to provide a better service to their clients.
"Indeed, everyone benefited; individual customers, the legal profession, financial institutions, the law-searching community and both public and private corporations," he said.
Ms Catherine Treacy, chief executive of the Land Registry, said the new system represented a major landmark in the overall programme of computerisation which has been undertaken by the Land Registry in recent years.
To date, over a million pages of official records have been made available through the system to customers over the Internet and by the time the project is complete in 2004, about 6.4 million images will be on-line.