Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 6 September 2019
662. Deputy Jack Chambers asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if his Department has a disaster recovery plan, business continuity plan and-or disaster recovery sites; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36248/19]
View answerThe Department has in place arrangements and communication protocols to be utilised in extreme weather or other events that render workplace environments inaccessible. As part of this, the Department has established remote working provisions for key staff to ensure the continuity of core business activities and customer services in emergency situations.
The Department’s primary ICT infrastructure is hosted in a very high availability environment with built-in resilience, in the Revenue Data Centre, a very high quality facility utilised by a number of other public sector bodies. In addition, specific disaster recovery arrangements are in place for a number of key applications and systems. The Office of the Government Chief information Officer (OGCIO) provides a number of centrally delivered applications to public sector bodies, including my Department, through its Build to Share initiative. The infrastructure underpinning these applications includes a disaster recovery plan and a secondary data site. A separate disaster recovery site is also in place for the Department’s Financial Shared Services systems and network, which provides a full range of payroll and financial services not only to my Department but to nine other client Departments and agencies. Work is ongoing to enhance and further develop recovery capacity for other IT systems and my Department will also continue to liaise with OGCIO in respect of public sector policy in this regard, including development of any new DR sites for the public sector.
