Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 June 2012
44 Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the steps he has taken to ensure that small and medium enterprises across rural Ireland can benefit from cloud computing. [27308/12]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government's Action Plan for Jobs outlines a number of actions to ensure that Ireland can reap substantial benefits in terms of jobs and growth from the global expansion of cloud computing. It recognises the opportunity for Ireland to promote the growth of cloud computing by supporting the emergence of start-up companies providing technology solutions and services in cloud computing and by simulating its take up and use by small businesses.
I am pleased to confirm that two of the actions in the Action Plan, which are designed to ensure that SMEs across Ireland can exploit the opportunities offered by cloud computing, have been implemented. In April I announced details of the €1.2 million industry led Cloud Computing Research Centre which is being funded by Government. This centre brings together a team of researchers from DCU, UCC and Athlone Institute of Technology with a cohort of IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland companies to establish ways to generate business from cloud computing. One of the priority objectives for the team is to conduct research on maintaining and managing cloud based applications for businesses of all sizes.
On 22 May I launched new standards which were developed by the National Standards Authority of Ireland in partnership with the Irish Internet Association (IIA) to help increase the number of Irish enterprises to successfully provide and procure cloud computing services. The new standards are designed to provide guidance to enterprises of all sizes on the various issues that need to be considered when moving to cloud computing. They are intended for use as a means of assessing cloud adoption prioritisation and suitability as they provide a comprehensive roadmap for businesses to encompass all cloud delivery and deployment models.
A number of other actions, which will assist micro enterprise and SMEs provide cloud computing services and avail of the opportunities offered by cloud computing, are being progressed this year in accordance with the Action Plan. These include:
providing support to industry groups, such as the Irish Software Association, to develop and deliver a practical tool kit to assist SMEs in assessing the adoption of cloud computing for their business;
examining the potential for demonstration projects in cloud computing to promote Ireland as a centre of excellence for this technology, and, to provide a reference site for Irish companies, while potentially lowering costs and improving services; and,
supporting research groups in areas of relevance to exploitation of cloud computing, such as semantic web and financial stock analysis, through, for example, support for the Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI). In other areas, such as middleware, information security and distributed computing, researchers are furthering research in this area with direct application in the cloud computing context.
Progress reports on all of these actions will be provided on a quarterly basis throughout the year.
