Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 June 2004
512 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if all public services provided by his Department that are capable of electronic delivery are available electronically through a single point of contact, as was promised in the joint programme; and if not, if he will make a statement or explanation in respect of each service not yet so provided. [17566/04]
View answerA commitment to have public services capable of electronic delivery available through a single point of contact by 2005 was given in March 2002 in the new connections action plan. It has been decided to focus for 2005 on the on-line delivery of the services that will deliver the greatest impact and return on investment, reflecting the level of demand for a particular service and those which are pivotal in progressing the wider information society agenda. My Department is not a front-line provider of public services. Services to the public are provided by the wide range of agencies in the sector, such as the criminal justice agencies, the immigration and asylum agencies and the equality agencies.
The electronic delivery of services through a single point of contact is being progressed through the framework of the public service broker. The Reach agency, under the aegis of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, is charged with responsibility for its design and development. It is intended to launch the first stage of the public services broker at the end of this month. A public facing website, www.reachservices.ie, will be designed to act as a single point of access to a range of services offered by the public service. The website will initially provide access by means of links to forms or on-line services provided on other websites. It will provide access to information and application forms for up to 900 services when it is launched. Approximately 25 services, from the citizenship, asylum and courts areas of the justice and equality sector, are included in this initial selection of services. Additional services will be added over the coming months.
Reach is also working to provide essential on-line capabilities for the benefit of customers and public service providers. The capabilities will include an integration framework that will allow for the secure electronic transmission and exchange of service requests. An early version of the framework is in operation in the form of the inter-agency messaging system, which facilitates secure messaging between agencies such as the General Registrars Office, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Central Statistics Office. My Department and the agencies in the justice and equality sector are actively engaging with the inter-agency messaging system framework to facilitate exchange of business documents and data among the agencies in the sector and to achieve the behind the scenes integration that is necessary to deliver improved services.
The Reach agency is also developing facilities for registration and authentication of customer identity, address validation, the pre-population of forms with previously registered data and an e-payments facility. Another important facility is the capability for developing and hosting on-line interactive forms which will be offered to Departments and agencies that are developing on-line services for their customers. My Department is in continuing discussions with the Reach agency about the range of on-line services, combining a number of the new capabilities, which may be provided by the justice and equality sector in the next phases of www.reachservices.ie. Rather than re-inventing, my Department intends to use these capabilities where possible.
