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Research Access to Vital Statistics Records

The CSO compiles Vital Statistics on births, deaths, marriages and stillbirths on behalf of the Minister for Health and Children. This is done in accordance with the provisions of Section 2 of the Vital Statistics, Births Deaths and Marriages Registration Act, 1952.

Section 73 of the Civil Registration Act 2004 allows access to more detailed vital statistics to those engaged in medical or social research, or to medical officers of Health Boards. This is subject to the approval of the Minister of Health and Children.

Requests for access to data under this provision are referred to the Information Management Unit of the Department of Health and Children. Data are provided by the CSO once the Minister for Health and Children has granted the appropriate consent. The terms of the consent usually specify that:

• confidentiality will be observed in relation to individual details;
• families and relatives of any persons who are the subject of such a request may not be contacted;
• identifiable details relating to individuals may not be published in resulting research papers or other documents.

Other supplementary individual data collected by the CSO is subject to the confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act, 1993.