Vol. 523 No. 2
106 Ms McManus asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage Gaeltacht and the Islands the plans she has to ensure the more regular updating of her Department's website in view of the fact that it has not been updated for almost five months; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20232/00]
A websites working group was established in my Department to review the three existing websites maintained by this Department. For the Deputy's information, these are: www.heritageireland.ie, which is a promotional website for the heritage sites managed by Dúchas, the heritage service of my Department, and the national cultural institutions which come under the aegis of my Department; www.heritagedata.ie, which provides GIS databases of national monuments, historic properties, parks and wildlife reserves; and www.irlgov.ie/ealga, which is the general departmental website.
The report of the working group was approved by the management advisory committee of my Department recently and a websites project board has been put in place. The role of the board is to set the direction for and review the effectiveness of the Department's websites, and the board has appointed three webmasters, one for each of the websites, whose role it will be to approve of and specify site content, format, layout, functionality and usability. A project manager has also been appointed to oversee the development of all of the websites with priority attention being given to the Department's main website, www.irlgov.ie/ealga.
This will clearly take some time. Immediate steps are being taken, however, to have the existing main website updated with my Department's statement of strategy and 1999 annual report, together with the section 15 and 16 handbooks prepared under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, 1997.
