Vol. 495 No. 4
351 Dr. Upton asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the steps, if any, he has taken to ensure that statistics and data held by his Department, the Garda and the courts are comparable in order that analysis can be made of this information. [20567/98]
At present there are a significant number of Information Technology projects which are under way in the Department, Garda Síochána and courts areas. These projects, which include the PULSE project in the Garda Síochána, will provide operational information for the agencies involved. My Department is also working on a set of projects which will allow for integration of systems across the various agencies. Specifically, these projects will address the following key areas: development of a common data model to address the identification of common data elements, such as offence codes etc., which will then be made common across the various systems; development of common identifiers to ensure that, where possible, relevant data can be examined across the systems; and development of interfaces between systems to address on a system by system basis, information which can be exchanged without the need for duplicate reentry of data.
It is planned that the analysis projects will be completed by January 1999 and that all operational systems due for delivery in 1999 and onwards will have built the results of the analysis into the system design. It is expected that this development will ensure that statistics produced and data held by the Department, courts and Garda Síochána are compatible across these areas.
