Vol. 519 No. 4
117 Dr. Upton asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the guidelines in place for regulating the type of material placed on his departmental websites; the further guidelines to regulate the links included on the website; and if the guidelines in this regard include party political or commercial material. [14023/00]
My Department has operated a departmental website for approximately the past three years. Its content is broadly divided into four separate areas: "static" type information such as scope and responsibilities of the various divisions of my Department including descriptions of work areas in accordance with sections 15 and 16 of the Freedom of Information Act; current information such as press releases and speeches. In addition, this area is used as a discussion forum, e.g. for upcoming legislation, members of the public and interest groups can make contributions on the issue; reports published by my Department – it has been the policy of my Department to publish these reports in full wherever possible; and contact information including electronic mail addresses for all main divisions.
Material is only placed on the site after going through the normal approval process for publication. Most of the material published on the site is also available in other media.
With regard to guidelines to regulate the links included on the website, it has been the practice to include links to related sites such as other Government-public agencies, both at home and abroad, EU sites and relevant educational institutions etc. There are no links to either party political or commercial material. There is a link to a site called "Doras" which has rated various Irish websites, including most Government websites, with regard to content, etc. However, this was a free service with no payments involved and is, therefore, not deemed commercial.
