Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

A huge range of organisations has moved out and by and large the functions have been worked out with regard to where people are going and where the offices are, along with their modus operandi. Civil Service unions and management staff have worked that out.

In most of the sections there is not that much traffic back to the city. For the future, even for those coming back, web-conferencing is the way to go. I entirely agree with the Deputy. We use such conferencing in my own Department for meetings between ourselves and the British Government. Otherwise my staff would constantly be going backward and forward. Most of our ongoing meetings with the British officials, except perhaps a monthly one, are being done through web-conferencing.

I will not state it is the best technology. Being honest, it is far from the best technology I have seen. I have seen the best technology in this regard in different corporations here and it is quite unbelievable. I will not mention company names but some of the best web-conferencing facilities in the world can be seen in this country, where one can literally feel he or she is in the room with people on the other side.

Our technology is poor in comparison but it does the job. On investment for the future, there is no reason Secretaries General or departmental heads cannot sit down and do their business with such technology. I am told that within five years the cost of very good conferencing facilities will be very affordable and will not be a great burden on companies. What we use currently is not brilliant but it certainly fulfils the obligation. Looking out over the next five years there is no reason a departmental head would not be able to link in to several agencies or Departments from a Dublin base, where the head would probably be, on a Monday morning. We are already at that stage and we just have to perfect it. It is the way of the future.

See this speech in context