Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 June 2004
285 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Education and Science if all public services provided by his Department that are capable of electronic delivery are available electronically through a single point of contact, as was promised in the joint programme; and if not, if he will make a statement on each service not yet provided. [17561/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe electronic delivery of services through a single point of contact is being progressed through the framework of the public services broker and the Reach agency is charged with responsibility for its design and development.
I intend to launch the first stage of the public services broker at the end of this month. This will be a public website and will be known as reachservices.ie. It will be designed to act as a single point of access to a range of services offered by the Irish public service. Initially the website will provide access in the form of links to forms or online services provided on other websites. It will provide access to information and application forms for up to 900 services at the time of its launch. The range of services accessible through the website will continue to be expanded until it provides a comprehensive index to the range of publicly provided services in Ireland.
In parallel, Reach is working to provide essential online capabilities for the benefit of customers and public service providers. These capabilities will include an integration framework that will allow for the secure electronic transmission and exchange of service requests. My Department is examining the possible use of the framework for automating the receipt and matching of death notices from the general registrar's office, and the location and validation of personal public service numbers in conjunction with the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
Reach is also developing facilities for the registration and authentication of customer identity, address validation, the pre-population of forms with previously registered data and an electronic payments facility. Another important facility is the capability for developing and hosting online interactive forms that will be offered to Departments and agencies that are developing online services for their customers.
Reach is in discussion with a number of Departments and agencies, including my Department, about a range of online services that will be launched with the next phase of the development of reachservices.ie in the autumn.
