I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Calleary, and thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this motion, to which there are a number of elements. The first is that the actual record on the spending of taxpayers' money on IT-related projects during the years has been patchy at best. The Comptroller and Auditor General compiled a report on this subject about a year ago, in which his office detailed a number of projects that were not within budget and did not meet their objectives. The appointment of a chief technology officer to improve the use of information technology in the public service and provide focused support for the development of an innovation economy would ensure such difficulties would not arise again and that money would be well spent. That is a somewhat negative reason, but there are two further reasons which are far more positive and progressive.
Major efficiencies could be achieved across the public service through the greater and smarter use of information technology. Take the HSE, for example, and some of the difficulties it has encountered recently in the recording of important statistics. There is no doubt that adopting a more co-ordinated approach across the public service to make better use of information technology would allow the achievement of better results for the citizen, as well as facilitating the better use of taxpayers' money.
More broadly, the report published recently by the Government on the creation of an innovation economy details what would be needed to create such a phenomenon and ensure information technology would play an appropriate role in it. There are many ways by which the use of existing information technology systems within the public service could be harnessed in order that employment could be created, as well as opportunities for Irish companies to express their ideas on how taxpayers' money could be better spent and tender for such work. The setting up of an office for this purpose would provide the dynamic to allow this to happen. We all know that excellence in the use of information technology will be a major driver in how the economy will perform in the future. The setting up of an office such as this to co-ordinate the different strands and ensure all Departments sing from the same hymn sheet would be of great benefit to companies already based here, as well as to those that will be created here in the future, either as indigenous companies or through investment from abroad.
Let me give one example. There is a great deal of discussion and concern about the use of file sharing technologies. This is always seen in the context of illegal file sharing, of music or illegal material. Many companies in Ireland use the same technology for legal and legitimate purposes. However, some of the measures being proposed might affect the viability of legitimate companies based here which are generating employment and profits. One of the things an office such as this could do is ensure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing and that in delivering something deemed to be very important within, say, the justice or social field, it does not have unintended adverse consequences elsewhere.
For all these reasons, this is an issue about which the Government should do something. It would be testimony to its commitment to the creation of an information society.
