Sixty additional staff are to be allocated to the Land Registry and Registry of Deeds to deal with arrears, the Minister for Justice told the Dail.

Mr O'Donoghue said they would be assigned to Dublin and Waterford, and special training programmes had been arranged to ensure maximum benefit to the registries. "I fully accept that all of the registries' services should be delivered in an expedient manner and, as I have already explained, the necessary measures to achieve this are being put in place."

The Minister was responding to a Fine Gael private member's motion criticising his decision to sanction increases in Land Registry charges and deploring the unreasonable delays in processing Land Registry applications. The party's spokesman on justice, Mr Jim Higgins, said a record backlog of over 80,000 applications were pending at the end of last year.

Mr O'Donoghue said the critical services which customers of the registries required in a timely fashion were in the areas of inspection of folios and maps, certified copies services, and first registration of schemes for developers. These had been identified as priorities and an efficient service was in place.

He added that applicants for registration of title did not suffer as a result of the arrears of dealings. In any case where, for genuine reasons, an application must be processed speedily, there were special arrangements to ensure this was achieved.

Mr Higgins said the Land Registry had placed advertisements in national newspapers in January, notifying the public that telephone inquiries for Cavan, Clare, Donegal, Galway, Kildare, Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Mayo, Meath, Monaghan, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath and Wicklow would be dealt with only between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. daily. The restriction was still in place.

"The problems in Land Registry did not begin today or yesterday. They have been obvious for a considerable time, but the situation has become intolerable over the past three years in particular."

He added that hundreds of young couples were being denied ownership of their homes because of the delays with the Land Registry. "Many are alarmed to learn that many months after they have parted with their money, they are still not the legal owners of their property."

Mr Higgins claimed there was a palpable sense of disbelief when it was announced last December that a decision had been taken, and approved by the Minister, to increase fees. "To introduce such increases in the light of the crisis that exists, and indeed that is getting increasingly worse in the Land Registry, illustrates just how out of touch the Minister is with the situation on the ground."

Mr O'Donoghue said curtailing telephone services at certain times was to allow staff to be free to handle dealings.

"I understand that this measure, which was discussed with the Law Society prior to implementation, has been put in place until the end of this month and that it will then fall to be reviewed. I should add that the application of this limited restriction has had the desired effect, with an improvement in the level of service, and that this has actually been acknowledged by members of the legal profession."

Mr Brian O'Shea (Labour, Waterford) criticised the Minister and the Government, but said his party would not support the motion, because part of it would be detrimental to his constituency.

An amendment to the Fine Gael motion, approving Government policy, was carried by 70 votes to 45.