Vol. 498 No. 4
256 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Finance his views on assigning specific responsibility for co-ordinating policy on the year 2000 bug to a full member of the Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24620/98]
The Government is taking an active leadership role in managing the year 2000 problem. Through directives to the civil and public service and a major business awareness campaign for the private sector, the Government has ensured that the year 2000 problem is being treated with top priority and the utmost urgency.
Given the diversity of systems and equipment and associated issues across the various sectors, the Government has adopted the approach of focusing on the year 2000 problem at a sectoral level.
The Government has made each Department and office individually responsible for ensuring it achieves year 2000 compliance in good time. The Government also made each Department individually responsible for ensuring the achievement of year 2000 compliance in all agencies operating under its aegis. The Government co-ordinates six reporting streams covering the civil and public service, based on the following monitoring and reporting structures.
Based on a detailed circular and advice note provided by my Department, all Departments and offices have put comprehensive year 2000 programmes in place. Remedial work has been ongoing since 1996. The Government has instructed senior management to take a personal interest in overseeing this year 2000 compliance work, and each Department and office has established an internal monitoring committee, chaired by a senior manager, which reports to its senior management and Minister regularly on the progress it is making.
The Government also established an Interdepartmental Year 2000 Monitoring Committee — with private sector representation — in 1997, to oversee the achievement of year 2000 compliance for IT systems and other office equipment across the Civil Service. My Department provides the chair and secretariat for this committee. The committee levies status updates on each Department and office; seeks self-assessments of year 2000 programmes from chairpersons of Departmental Y2K monitoring committees; and interviews Y2K programme managers on their work programmes. Based on this process, the committee reports every two months to me and the Government on the progress being achieved. The committee has reported on five occasions to date. While a lot of work remains to be done, reasonable progress is being made and all Departments and offices are satisifed that they will achieve full compliance in good time.
257 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Finance the extent of his Department's preparedness for the year 2000 problem, including agencies for which he is responsible; the amount of money contained in this year's departmental Estimates for dealing with the problem; the number of additional staff taken on to assist year 2000 work including any outside consultants involved; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27229/98]
For well over a year now my Department and the offices under its remit have been preparing for the year 2000, in line with formal plans drawn up in 1997. Those plans quantified the effort involved in achieving year 2000 compliance for IT systems and other affected areas and recent reports show that reasonable progress is being made on their implementation, ensuring that these systems will continue to function properly in the lead up to and after 1 January 2000. This work is being monitored closely in my own Department by a year 2000 committee, which reports to me. Similar committees, reporting to senior management, monitor progress in the offices under my remit and these offices report in turn to the Interdepartmental Year 2000 Monitoring Committe, which was established last year to oversee achievement of year 2000 compliance in the Civil Service. This committee, which is chaired by my Department, reports to Government every two months.
With regard to costs, it is not possible to say what money is contained in this year's departmental Estimates for dealing with year 2000 problem, because of the element of compliance which is being achieved through the Departments' and offices' ongoing programmes of hardware and software upgrades. No additional staff have been taken on to assist with this work. In 1996 the Revenue Commissioners engaged external consultants to work on a short-term joint project with Revenue personnel to assess the impact of year 2000 on Revenue's computer systems and to establish the direction the organisation should take in addressing the problem. Apart from this no outside consultants have been retained to handle year 2000 remedial work exclusively, but on a number of IT projects on which consultants have been retained, year 2000 compliance is being acheived as part of the overall design objectives. These include the redesign of the Paymaster General Office's payable order reconciliation system in my own Department, the redesign of the recruitment management system in the Civil Service Commission and the introduction of the consolidated tax project and stamp duty administration system in the Office of the Revenue Commissioners.
A separate committee, which also reports to me, monitors progress on achievement of year 2000 compliance in the State sponsored bodies under tha aegis of my Department.
The recent report of this committee showed that all the bodies have remedial programmes in hand which will achieve compliance on schedule.
