Thanks guys. That has got me thinking. I am currently updating the whole program (over 15,000 lines of code) with speed efficientcy in mind. The unique solution is an obvious one I didn't think of. Thank you.
At the moment I'm also devising a way that old data be stored in a different database, or at least different tables. That way new data input can be kept at an optimum performance and old data that isn't referenced anywhere near as often wont get in the way.
Links to good Perl database performance tuning would be much appreciated.

Lyle