Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Committee on Transport and Communications: Select Sub-Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 29 - Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (Revised)

Deputy Pat Rabbitte:There is some validity in that criticism. It is something we share with other member states in terms of the take-up and e-government interaction but there are a number of measures in progress centrally. The Government appointed a CIO that is seeking to pull all of this together. The publication of the national digital strategy in my Department last summer is a step towards addressing the issue raised by the Deputy. A programme run in the Department, for example, benefit 3, now benefit 4, was designed for a relatively small amount of money to address the issue of the digital divide to try to teach people basic digital literacy skills and the partnership with the community and voluntary sector is very significant in that regard. For example, in the Deputy's constituency, I attended a launch of this programme in Ennis with organisations such as Age Action and others who all attest to the value they have got from a relatively small spend in terms of encouraging digital literacy among people who did not have the opportunity when in education or in employment but now would like to tax the car, book an airline ticket or whatever online. On that front we are making progress. I appreciate the Deputy's question focuses on more on e-government. We are also making progress in the area of SMEs in the sense that we are seeking to encourage the transacting of business online. The Deputy will see in the subhead that we have made a provision of some €5 million for 2014 in terms of the trading online voucher system that is designed to bring 1,000 SMEs online, actually doing business online this year.

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