Mr. Barry Lowry:

I thank the committee for inviting me here today to inform the discussion on the public services card and MyGovID. My name is Barry Lowry and I am the Government chief information officer. My objective this morning is to give the committee a sense of the strategic need to increase the adoption and usage of the card and, in particular, the MyGovID service token.

I will begin with the European context for the ongoing plans and then focus on the national interest. As regards Europe, I was interested to read a recent comment by Thomas Donohue, chief executive and president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, who predicted that Ireland will take on a more significant role in Europe if Brexit proceeds as planned. Given the importance of the EU to our economy, I am sure the committee fully accepts that it is essential for us to be at the forefront of any European initiatives that impact on our trade and economy.

The European Commission is extremely committed to the concept of digital government driving digital commerce and, therefore, economic growth. It estimated that ICT is currently responsible for half of productivity growth in the EU and the digital sector is expected to grow seven times faster than the overall EU economy. The Vice-President of the European Commission, Mr. Andrus Ansip, has, therefore, set out ambitious plans for cross-border eGovernment and the establishment of a digital Single Market. Mr. Ansip has frequently quoted figures produced by the European added value unit indicating that, taking into account various constraints, a fully realised digital Single Market could increase GDP by €340 billion a year and make a very significant contribution to overall GDP growth in Europe over the next decade. He has repeatedly stated that governments can play a substantial role in progressing the concept of a digital Single Market by facilitating cross-border access to digital government services, whether that be an Irish citizen accessing our services regardless of his or her location or an EU citizen being able to plan to work, live or holiday in Ireland and put all of his or her arrangements in place before arriving in the country. It is imperative that we take all possible steps to make certain we are aware of, shape and are ready to utilise such developments to ensure Ireland is not disadvantaged or left behind the rest of Europe in terms of digital trade and digital government.

EU Regulation No. 910 of 2014, often known as the eIDAS, electronic ID and trust services, regulation, addresses electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the Internal Market. The regulation has been established to enable people and businesses to use their own national electronic identification schemes to access public services in other EU countries where eIDs are also available. The regulation also creates legal validity for electronic signatures, seals, time stamps etc. such that they will have the same legal status as traditional paper-based processes. If Ireland is to be recognised as a progressive digital state within Europe, then we must have a safe, secure and verifiable State eID. MyGovID gives us a basis for that capability. It provides substantial assurance that a person online is who he or she claims to be and gives considerable protection against personation and fraud. It can also provide the foundation for the future use of electronic signatures. MyGovID is the only viable approach that can underpin future citizen interaction with a digital Europe.

The EU’s eGovernment action plan 2016-20 sets out a shared eGovernment vision and a series of principles to which member states should adhere. The principles include that public administrations should deliver services digitally as the preferred option through a single contact point or a one-stop-shop; that they should ensure that citizens and businesses only need to supply the same information once to a public administration; that public administration offices should take action if permitted to internally re-use these data, in due respect of data protection rules, such that no additional burden falls on citizens and businesses; and that public administrations should share information and data with one another and enable citizens and businesses to access, control and correct their own data and monitor the administrative processes that involve them. It is reasonable to expect of any digital government that citizens be able to carry out more transactions online, provide information only once, have it securely stored for future needs and then be able to see and correct the data held on them and how they are being used. Much of that aligns closely to the general data protection regulation, GDPR, which will come into force in May.

However, we can only do such things if we are absolutely certain that persons seeking to carry out such transactions are exactly who they say they are. MyGovID is of great importance in that regard because it provides a very strong means of online verification. Contrary to what some have written and stated, underpinning Government services with MyGovID and the SAFE 2 process will help us to provide more secure and transparent Government services. Consequently, the eGovernment strategy published in July by the Minister of State with responsibility for eGovernment, Deputy O’Donovan, set out ten key actions aimed at enabling citizens to access digital government services of similar levels of quality, transparency and safety as the leading digital countries in Europe. These actions include the development of a digital services gateway, a roadmap for allowing citizens to authenticate themselves for any government digital service using MyGovID, plans for business and location e-identification, the means for governed data-sharing across Government, plans to build on our open data success and plans to ensure that our staff have the requisite digital skills and capabilities.

This is an area of rapidly growing national interest as increasing numbers of the public want us to proceed down this road. In the 2017 Civil Service customer satisfaction survey conducted by IPSOS MRBI, 61% of the total consulted and 76% of those in the 18-34 age category agreed or strongly agreed that they would be more inclined to use online Government services as their preferred method of initial engagement with the Civil Service, provided they were easier to find and use. Some 65% of the total, and 82% of the 18-34 age category, thought that a single digital identity would be very convenient or fairly convenient.

We have a real opportunity to provide Government services that are more efficient, convenient, transparent and provide a better user experience but that cannot be achieved without a single electronic identification scheme. The committee is aware of the existing importance of the digital industry to Ireland. The digital economy is estimated to account for 6% or €12.3 billion of Ireland's GDP. The digital and ICT sector is a very significant employer, offering high-quality jobs through the strong presence of global players, our world-class SME capability and the many organisations which deploy digital and ICT as part of their day-to-day business. Research completed for the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation’s future skills needs analysis stated that there was a growth in ICT jobs provision of around 8% to 9% from 2016 onwards, with demand partly being met through attracting foreign talent. More than 6,500 ICT employment permits have been issued in the past two years. A compound annual growth rate of 8.5% per annum is expected from 2017 to 2022. Although this requirement will again be helped by the recruitment of foreign talent, it also offers tremendous opportunities to our current and prospective workforce through graduate recruitment, apprenticeships and retraining schemes. If we accept that talented workers are more likely to apply to and stay with companies that deploy digital technology well, it must follow that countries which provide an optimised citizen experience through the use of digital and ICT will be more likely to attract and retain the best talent.

I hope my opening statement has been helpful in briefly giving the committee an indication of the importance of the role that MyGovID and the underlying SAFE 2 process can and must play in establishing Ireland as a European digital and eGovernment leader, helping it to attract and retain the highest quality jobs and best talent and providing government services to its people that are safer, more efficient and more transparent than ever before.

I am very happy to listen to the committee's views and answer any questions members may have to the best of my ability.