In general, the Irish public service makes very good use of a wide range of technologies in its inter-agency communications to improve the efficiency of such communications and to minimise costs. These include fixed and mobile telephony, IP-based telephony, VoiceMail, e-mail, Instant Messaging, Video and Audio conferencing, file transfers, desktop or applications sharing, and the availability of data and services through SOA. In some cases, some of these facilities are provided through unified software suites. In almost all cases, the communications are facilitated through connectivity with Government Networks, which essentially is a private high-speed, countrywide network that is managed and maintained by my Department.