Vol. 486 No. 1
85 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance if he will require all Departments, in their strategy statements under the SMI, to include an action plan to deal with computers which cannot cope with the date change in the year 2000 because the years are identified in their system by the last two digits, and thus 2000 is indistinguishable from 2100, 1900, 1800 and so on; and, if not, the reason for not imposing this requirement. [19603/97]
In March of this year, the Department of Finance requested all Departments and offices to carry out planning exercises to assess the exposure of their information technology systems to the year 2000 problem, and to produce plans to ensure that their IT systems would be year 2000 compliant by January 1999 or earlier.
All Departments and offices have produced such plans. The volume of year 2000 compliance activities varies considerably from Department to Department, and in some cases it is relatively minor. It is evident from the plans that many potential year 2000 problems have already been eliminated by the replacement of ageing computer systems and infrastructures. Considerable remedial work has been on-going for some time in those Departments and offices most affected, and all expect that this remedial work will be completed by early 1999.
The Government has also decided to set up an Interdepartmental Monitoring Committee to oversee the achievement of year 2000 compliance in the Civil Service. This committee will be chaired by my Department, and will include members from the private sector. It will submit quarterly reports to Government on the progress being made in achieving year 2000 compliance in the Civil Service.
With regard to the question of Departments including in their strategy statements an action plan to deal with year 2000 compliance, I would expect that this work would be included in their business plans or in the work programmes arising from the strategy statements.
