A number of strategic ICT developments have been completed in recent years to ensure that my Department has professional state of the art electronic storage and retrieval facilities. Infrastructure has been upgraded to provide a storage area network, SAN, which provides high capacity resilient data storage and data backup facilities. A number of application developments have also been completed. Completed developments include a national vehicle and driver file (NVDF) system which holds over three million motor tax and driving licence records and is currently enabling the implementation of the penalty points system. Modern systems for human resource records management have also been installed.
Projects currently under way include management information framework, MIF, developments which when implemented in January 2004 will provide a state of the art system for financial and asset records management. Over time, the MIF will be further developed to become a central data warehouse which will be used to store and retrieve data relating to many aspects of the Department's business.