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Information and Communications Technology Issues

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 July 2013

Thursday, 18 July 2013

Questions (217)

Catherine Murphy

Question:

217. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he is preparing his Department to adapt to, and make maximum use of, next generation technologies in information and communications in order to better enhance the interaction of his Department with the citizen and the internal functioning of his Department; if he intends to conduct a risk analysis in respect of same; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36102/13]

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Written answers

For many years, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have been crucial in enabling my Department provide key services including payrolls for serving and retired school employees, the On-Line Claims System, post-primary pupils database etc. With the ongoing need to further reduce the cost of delivering public services by streamlining current processes, rolling out shared services etc, ICT will play a major role in enabling my Department respond to such challenges. I can assure the Deputy that my Department's IT Unit is constantly assessing next generation technologies, relevant to this organisation.

Examples of current and recent projects include: Bandwidth improvements to the telecommunications infrastructure between my Department's main offices in Dublin, Athlone and Tullamore, has facilitated the replacement last year, of an aging telephone system, with a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system. Increased bandwidth has also been rolled out to my Department's 31 local/regional offices; A major PC upgrade programme is currently underway, in the three main offices, along with an upgrade to Windows 7, Microsoft Office 2013 and rollout of Unified Communications; A major project to upgrade the hardware (servers and Storage Area Network) and database software architecture underlying the Department's main datasets has just commenced; Work is ongoing on the development of PPOD (Post-Primary Online Data), an online application to facilitate the updating of post-primary pupil and school data. This application will be rolled out to all Post-Primary schools in late 2013; My Department launched its redeveloped website in mid-2012. This website includes a map-based find-a-school feature, improved search facilities and has since been enhanced to facilitate video, social media and surveys, such as school patronage etc.; An online application to facilitate Primary Schools submitting aggregate literacy and numeracy data was also implemented in late 2012; Business Intelligence solutions have been implemented on a number of existing datasets, for some business areas and work is continuing to broaden its use.

Many of the above projects were included in the Department's ICT Strategy for the period 2011-2013. Work is commencing on the development of the subsequent ICT Strategy for the period 2014-2016. This strategy will take account of next generation technologies relevant to this organisation and its customer base, in addition to public service wide policies as regards cloud computing, eGovernment, shared services, etc.

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