Ruairí Quinn
Question:3 Mr. Quinn asked the Taoiseach the progress which has been made in regard to the implementation of the Government action programme on the information society; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12757/00]
Ceisteanna–Questions. - Information Society.
John Bruton
Question:4 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach if he will make a statement on the implementation of the Government action programme on the information society. [13381/00]
John Bruton
Question:5 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Taoiseach the development plans for his Department's website; the number of e-mails he receives through it weekly; the plans, if any, he has to protect or acquire related site names; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14045/00]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 3 to 5, inclusive, together.
The Government's action plan for the development of the information society in Ireland was launched in January 1999. The plan covers a number of areas such as infrastructure, legislation, electronic public services, access, etc. and mandates Departments and agencies to undertake specific tasks to ensure quick adoption of the plan.
Since the publication of the plan, major initiatives are under way. The provision of broadband connectivity to Europe and the US is well advanced with bandwidth being sold on to the private sector. Work is also under way on providing broadband infrastructure to the regions and significant funding has been allocated to this in the national development plan. The Electronic Commerce Bill which will give a legal framework to e-commerce transactions is currently before the Oireachtas and should be enacted later this month or next month.
Enterprise Ireland is currently running e-business initiatives to raise awareness of e-commerce among SMEs and the joint Information Society Commission/ IBEC awareness initiative for the business community recently concluded. Initiatives to increase awareness among the general public include a television series on technology, aimed at those wary of technology, which recently started on RTE. The Information Society Commission recently published a report entitled IT Access for All which contains recommendations to enable universal participation in the information age. Arising from this, an interdepartmental group has been established to draw up an access strategy.
Pilot projects on the electronic delivery of public services have commenced with the FÁS on-line job resource for job seekers and employers and the Land Registry on-line service. Work is in progress on the Revenue On-line Service, ROS, for processing tax returns. The Government recently approved a framework for the delivery of integrated electronic public services and decided that each Department should prepare a strategy for the development of such services. The recent appointment of a director and deputy director of REACH will facilitate its task of designing e-public service delivery systems around life and business events. The Government recently authorised commencement of an e-Cabinet project to bring the benefits of new technologies to the Cabinet process and a dedicated information society fund has been established with funding of £30 million this year. To date, over £16 million has been committed to 38 projects through the fast track evaluation process to facilitate quick start-ups.
A second progress report on the action plan was published in July 1999 and a third report was published in April. The action plan and progress reports are available on the e-Ireland page of my Department's website.
Development of a departmental intranet is well advanced and is due to be brought into operation before the summer. The intranet project involves the presentation of information resources via web technologies. The intranet will form the basis for a redesign of my Department's website to improve its utility. The redesign will also incor porate the public sector website guidelines which I launched last November; a more customer focused/user friendly site and will add value to existing information and service provision. I expect that the new website will be in place before the autumn.
The number of e-mails received through my departmental website varies considerably from week to week. However, on average between 25 and 40 e-mails are received. My Department has registered a number of domain names relating to its activities over the past few weeks and other Departments have been encouraged to do the same in relation to names relevant to their areas of responsibility.
In regard to the domain names "thetaoiseach.com" and "bertieahern.com" already registered by third parties, my Department is engaged in consultations with other concerned Departments and the Office of the Attorney General on the most appropriate strategies to deal with the problem. The possibility of availing of the ICANN, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, arbitration procedure is also being examined in this context.
The Taoiseach has provided a very comprehensive reply. I welcome the fact that the Government has built on the initiative taken by the previous Government, particularly by the then Taoiseach, Deputy John Bruton. As the Minister for the Environment and Local Government is in the House, perhaps he could assist the Taoiseach in answering my question. Is the Taoiseach aware that the planning and development process is one of the most information unfriendly areas in our society, through no fault of anyone in the House? If people wish to view proposals for planning applications which they have seen on site or in the newspapers, it is very difficult for them to do so.
Will the Taoiseach indicate what plans are envisaged to make planning information available on an electronic basis? Many drawings for buildings above a certain scale are done on the CAD electronic formatting system and could be made available to people for inspection. Will the Taoiseach indicate the Government's views on this issue having regard to the massive increase in the volume of construction work being carried out at present?
The Minister for Finance has been of great assistance in providing resources to allow Departments to identify and implement projects. We will see a great deal of progress in many areas before the end of the year.
The planning process is a big area and the electronic system is at an advanced stage. A pilot scheme is under way to consider planning in Counties Meath, Kildare and Donegal. The work carried out in respect of these three counties will eventually be carried out nationwide and the resources will be available to do that. I understand it is intended to put three dimensional drawings on the Internet as part of these pilot projects. The Planning and Development Bill provides that all planning submissions will be dealt with electronically. I hope that type of work can be done across a range of areas.
The electronic system is well advanced in the Land Registry, the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners. The Revenue On-line Service will certainly be active by the autumn. All Departments have been asked to identify particular areas in their strategies and they have already received the go-ahead to use the consultants to implement their strategies. I will be disappointed if a significant proportion of departmental services are not available on-line by the end of the year.
Does the ROS system relate to the making of electronic payments?
The Revenue Commissioners will be able to carry out their entire workload – submissions, returns, records, payments, etc. – electronically under the system.
The reduction of Internet access costs comprised one of the aspects of the plan. Is it not the case that Internet access costs in Ireland are at the higher end of the scale?
They are still at the higher end of the scale although broadband connectivity will dramatically change that by the end of this year or perhaps by the end of the summer as the global crossing network is fed throughout the country. We will have 15 times the capacity we had a year ago at one tenth of the cost.
I have been informed by international experts that it will be possible to reduce costs even further through competition. A second company has already signed up and a third is at discussion stage. Over the coming 12 months, we will see real competition which will result in costs being driven down even further.
Does the Taoiseach recall that one of the objectives of the strategy was that everybody would have an e-mail address? Will he indicate the progress in this regard? I understand that the commission has published a report and the Government's response was to set up an interdepartmental committee to consider the report. Would he agree that decisions should be taken on this subject and that if the Information Society Commission has made recommendations, they should be acted upon rather than referred to another committee?
The Information Society Commission gave a list of measures on how we can get everybody to take part in the information society. We are committed to ensuring that everybody can reap the benefits of the information society. On the kind of steps which the com mission put to us and which we have implemented already, the report, IT Access for All, which was mentioned already, provides a framework for ensuring that nobody is excluded from the benefits. An interdepartmental group was drawn up to produce an access strategy which will include provisions to facilitate access by everybody. Regarding disadvantaged groups, this year it is hoped to build on the Net Day project, which took place last autumn. There is the television series to which I referred. Free access has been made available in public libraries and kiosks are being installed in social welfare offices to allow clients access via the Internet. There is an enormous amount of resources being committed to the ICTs in education. In libraries, the number of PCs connected to the Internet has increased from 150 at the beginning of the year to 1,000 at present. There is the FÁS job service on-line. There is a pilot e-procurement scheme in three of the local authorities in addition to what I mentioned earlier regarding the planning services. Therefore, most of the work set out in the report has been implemented.
I am unsure about the progress which has been made regarding the provision of an e-mail address for everybody, but the commission, in its efforts to involve everyone, has undertaken programmes in the county enterprise areas. We tried to move immediately on all the projects the commission has put to me. I am conscious of what has been said in the House on a number of occasions – that we make sure that, regardless of where they are located, all community schemes, schemes for the disadvantaged, State schemes and schools have access to the Internet.
Regarding access in schools to the Internet, is it the case that a considerable sum has been spent on the training of teachers and many teachers have taken training, but there is a problem that there are not enough computers in the schools, that many schools have maybe only one telephone line and, therefore, only one person can be on the Internet at any one time in those schools and that the State has not provided the schools with sufficient hardware to get any meaningful return from the investment in the training which was taken up with great enthusiasm by the teaching profession?
I am not in possession of all the facts on education, but I know that all the schools have access to the Internet. An enormous number of schools have computer rooms and PCs. It is true that not all of them have enough lines, but the hardware has been provided in a large number of schools with the help not only of the Government but of the computer companies, who have been helpful in this area.
The telephones are the problem.
That is the case with regard to the Internet, but with regard to software packages—
We had moved on from that.
I assume many schools have only one line. The next phase will be to increase their number.
Is the Taoiseach aware that it is much more difficult to acquire a ".ie" domain name than a ".com" address? What does he intend to do about that? It is clear that one need simply provide a credit card number to acquire a ".com" domain name but it is much more difficult to acquire a ".ie" domain name through UCD. That needs to be addressed. What does he intend to do about that?
Does he agree that integrating the television and the PC is probably the only way to allow disadvantaged groups access to Internet technology?
On the Deputy's second question, the library and community services are the way of doing that. Net Day, which was run for only a few weeks, proved very successful. People were surprised at the level of interest of not only people in disadvantaged areas, who were familiar with this because of the FÁS and community enterprise schemes, but also the elderly. There was enormous interest in training among the elderly, and the library service is the best way to address that because statistics show that the elderly are strong supporters of the library services.
I do not know the resolution to the Deputy's first query. The difference is that a ".com" domain can be registered by anybody, as I know to my expense.
I hope the Taoiseach has not paid anything.
Not a penny, although I gather it has gone away. The ".ie" domain names are only given to individuals and that is why the procedure is tighter.
Is the Taoiseach aware that recently many of us had ISDN lines installed at home? Is he aware that the cost of installation of these lines is in excess of £300 and the line rental works out at about £29 every two months? It is an exorbitant charge.
One cannot use a computer properly without an ISDN line.
The Deputy is correct. The reality is that one needs an ISDN to use a computer adequately. Such prices put the service out of reach of the ordinary person. I must declare an interest here in that the State paid for the installation of the line for all of us, but such expense is making domestic use of the Internet or computers prohibitive for many people.
Deputy Barrett will be aware that the price of installation has fallen substantially, but it obviously needs to fall further. I do not recall the price of it two or three years ago, but it was far more exorbitant than that – a colleague informs me that it cost a few thousand pounds at that stage.
If we are to get people using the system fully and to extend it to all parts of society, which is what we must do, then cost is a factor. Driving down the costs through competition is a way of dealing with it.
Is the Taoiseach aware that the rural renewal section which was in the Department of the Taoiseach undertook many pilot schemes? Is he aware that in most of these schemes a great deal of interest was shown in the installation of technology and computers? Is he aware that these pilot schemes have not been taken further? Will he re-examine the matter and report on its current standing?
There are three points in that regard. I am told by the experts in this area that the agricultural community has taken on the use of software packages far quicker than most others in Irish society. Perhaps the pilot schemes have helped to achieve that.
These are programmes which we set up when in Government.
Deputy Carey set them up.
I congratulate the Deputy.
I thank the Taoiseach. I had to drag it out of him.
Connectivity will help dramatically to bring Internet access to all parts because, regardless of location, a person will be able to gain access to the service. That will make a substantial difference. About £100 million is being spent in that regard. There are a number of schemes which were recently designed by some of the commercial companies purely for rural tourism, agriculture and other areas, and there has been an enormous take up of these schemes.