Vol. 504 No. 7
148 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the state of readiness of his Department with regard to the year 2000 computer issue; if he will report on the position in relation to hardware and software; if a statement of compliance of readiness has been issued; if not, if and when such a statement will be issued; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12592/99]
In consultation with the centre for management and organisation development of the Department of Finance, my Department completed a year 2000 preliminary assessment report in 1997. In August 1997, a year 2000 project board was set up, chaired by an assistant secretary, to oversee the work on year 2000 compliance. As part of the preliminary impact assessment both hardware and software were examined and approximately 50 departmental systems, were identified as being non-compliant. Resulting from this, a year 2000 compliance plan was drafted in October 1997. The year 2000 project board meets on a monthly basis to review and monitor progress towards compliance and reports regularly to the Department's management committee and IT steering committee. In addition, every two months a status report is forwarded to the interdepartmental year 2000 monitoring committee, which briefs the Government on this matter.
Specifically with regard to the Department's computer hardware, a considerable amount of year 2000 upgrading work on mainframe operating systems, PC hardware, PC support software and networks has been completed at this stage. In parallel, remedial work is being carried out on all of the non-compliant software applications.
The Government's target date for year 2000 compliance is end July 1999. I am satisfied the Department is well positioned to meet the compliance deadline.
