Information and Communications Technology Issues

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 March 2013

Thursday, 21 March 2013

Questions (117)

Sean Fleming

Question:

117. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he has given any consideration to the possibility of operating a central share or federated telephony switchboard for Departments that are connected to the Government network; if this type of service, in which all calls are sent to a shared switchboard service, delivering greater resilience, lower costs and increased call handling capacity, has been contemplated by the CMOD unit of his Department; if any analysis of possibilities and challenges has been undertaken, and if so, if he will provide an outline of the findings of those analyses; the reduced staffing implications of such services would be; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14433/13]

Written answers

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

Given the hundreds of individual services provided by Government Departments and the diversity of those services, it does not make operational or commercial sense to centralise the call-handling for all of these. Instead the public service has invested in a range of more practical solutions including IVR, Direct Dial-In, Lo-Call, 076 facilities, Voice over IP and Skype facilities. These facilities and the underlying Government Networks infrastructure have been implemented resiliently. These architectural approaches have resulted in a reduction in telecommunications costs across the Irish public service.