Vol. 493 No. 3
244 Mr. Gormley asked the Minister for Finance the steps, if any, he proposes to take to bring forward a Government software licensing initiative in order to ensure that all Government Departments and agencies, public bodies and voluntary bodies funded principally by the Exchequer use only legal software; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15824/98]
All IT units in the Civil Service comply with a common set of technical principles — one of which is the avoidance, wherever possible, of the use of multiple software products within their respective organisations to meet the same need. As a result, a narrower range of software products are used by Departments and offices than would be the case for organisations with less restrictive software acquisition practices. Competitive tendering exercises are used to acquire software. The intended use for the software and the number of licences required are specified in the request for tender document that issues to the market. All subsequent acquisitions of the chosen software are subject to contract. There is, therefore, a high degree of transparency between the software supplier and the Department involved in relation to the number of licences required.
In the context of on-going IT review meetings with individual Departments and offices, my Department will request each of them to ensure that similar arrangements apply within bodies under their aegis.
Consideration has already been given by my Department to the use of centralised framework contracts for the licensing of software and for acquiring commodity hardware — for example, PCs, printers etc. As a result of legal advice, which suggested that the use of framework contracts was probably in breach of EU procurement law, it was decided not to proceed with this type of arrangement. Consideration is currently being given in the EU Commission to allowing framework arrangements in a future revision of procurement law. Should this come into effect, consideration will be given once again to centralised licensing arrangements.
