Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I welcome this debate. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report on e-Government has exposed the disturbing level of poor Government. We should have seen the development of quality public services using the benefits of new technologies at a reasonable cost and within strict timeframes. What we have got instead is a record of inadequate planning, unrealistic expectations, interdepartmental friction and weak central oversight. The report shows that 23 of the 141 flagship projects to provide Government services were abandoned. Of the total of 161 projects, only 74 were fully operational six months after their completion deadline. Their cost of €42 million was 20% over budget. Projects, on average, took 25% longer to complete than planned. In effect, one in three projects were only partly implemented while one in six were abandoned.

The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General is not only an inventory of the shortcomings of the e-Government strategy, it also offers us clear direction for the future. Its recommendations specifically pinpoint the lack of essential management principles, which is startling. The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General reveals a serious deficiency in strategic management and offers good advice. It states:

All projects should have clear, measurable business objectives, and time and cost targets. A much stronger project cost and performance measurement and reporting system is required, integrated with departmental and agency reporting systems.

The report further states:

measurable targets should be set for each of the strategic goals of eGovernment, and responsibility for the achievement of the goals should be formally assigned. . .

Annual eGovernment progress reports should be published, focusing on the achievement both of strategic goals and of planned project impacts. The effectiveness of the eGovernment strategy should be formally and independently evaluated from time to time.

I asked the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, yesterday to take on board these specific points, and I thought he had an open mind to doing so. I welcome and congratulate Deputy Coveney and the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, for the progress made in reaching an agreement on this motion and, thus, the House will not divide on it. None of us benefits from avoiding learning from the mistakes of the past. All of us, regardless of which side we are on, have an interest in ensuring that sufficient thought and preparation will be invested in the next e-Government strategy, which I understand is due to be published in July, to ensure a better outcome than the two plans which preceded it. It would be difficult to imagine that the outcome of this one could be worse. However, what we can expect now is significantly better than what we would have expected.

As the agreed motion points out, there has been no formal e-Government strategy in place since 2006. This shows a lack of priority and focus being given to changing and improving the method whereby public services are made accessible to the citizen. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report has already shown that there has been a worrying slowdown in the delivery of new e-Government services. I hope the focus that has emerged from this debate will kick-start efforts from the Government, which up to now have been disappointingly half-hearted.

The agreed motion puts greater emphasis on the Government's obligation to live up to the report's recommendations. We will have to see better planning, more realistic targets, better cost management, greater interdepartmental co-operation and more effective central oversight into the future. They are only words on paper and time will tell whether the Government is up to the task. We on the Opposition side will work diligently and to our best efforts to ensure that it is.

I have concerns about the overall responsibility and management of this programme. Yesterday the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, stated that he was not in charge of the project but rather that each Department was responsible for its own changes and developments. This motion, which has been agreed between the Government and the Opposition, calls on the Government to provide a framework for implementation of this strategy following its publication. However, it is still not specific about who ultimately is in charge and responsible for it. Clearly, there is a need for overall management and, in a sense, a change of command.

I return to an issue I raised previously. On 1 April this year the REACH project was transferred from the Department of Social and Family Affairs to the Department of Finance. It is not clear who made that decision but we know that a project to provide a public service broker, estimated to cost €14 million, ended up costing €37 million and the ongoing cost of it is estimated to be €15 million per year. Will this project still proceed or will it be buried? It would be helpful if a full and frank statement was made regarding its future. Such a frank move would be in line with the spirit of the motion that has been agreed. It would also serve the interests of the public who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of such developments but who too often, as the report has shown, end up simply paying for Government mistakes. It needs to be remembered that, on the one hand, the public are hungry for the provision of greater facilities on-line, whether in terms of public or private services, and that this need has not been met to date. It is still not possible to apply for a driving licence or purchase a new television licence on-line, the provision of which would be a service for people whose time is precious.

However, it is also important to recognise that there is a lack of confidence when one considers that we have been lumbered with e-voting machines that are essentially useless and the storage of which is costing us money year on year. We have also seen the Government run up gargantuan overruns in the cost of PPARS under the charge of the HSE. The cost of that system was approximately €180 million and probably even more than that has been spent on it at this stage. There is a cost in that. That money could have been spent on keeping hospital beds open, given that we now read that they are being closed. It could have been spent on fighting hospital infections. Ultimately, the public pay the bills for Government inadequacies.

We all understand that it is not easy to change and develop new services but at the very least we should and are entitled to expect that the best strategic management is in place when it comes to making these changes. It is not that we do not have the expertise, but it seems there is a certain lack of political leadership. The Comptroller and Auditor General's report indicates a lack of leadership.

My last point is probably odd and tangential to this debate. An impressive presentation of climate change was made at a committee today and all the changes we will have to make to tackle this vital global issue were outlined. If we can provide more services on-line, it will ensure that fewer people have to make journeys by road. Perhaps they can work from or carry out their normal business from home or from centres at work. That is the kind of change that is possible and the hidden benefit of getting the e-Government strategy right.

I wish the Minister of State well in this respect. I hope the next phase into which we are moving and the new strategy will benefit from the analysis of the mistakes made in the past. The Minister of State has shown an openness in dealing with this matter and I wish him well in doing that.

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