John Cregan (Limerick West, Fianna Fail)

I compliment and congratulate our Chief Whip, the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Kitt, and Deputy Simon Coveney, the main Opposition spokesperson, on arriving at a sensible solution in bringing forward an agreed motion. That is welcome, and I am not surprised. From another forum, I know about the wealth of Deputy Coveney's knowledge on this subject. I also want to compliment the conciliation and negotiating skills of my good friend, the Chief Whip. It is good that, from time to time in this House, we can be sensible, not oppose for the sake of opposing, and make progress by way of agreement. The Opposition has made some good suggestions, and I welcome them.

E-Government projects that use the interactivity and speed of the Internet to provide public services need someone clearly identifiable to drive cost savings and efficiencies in Departments and public service organisations and to ensure that major projects are delivered on time. Any useful website should be intuitive, fully functional and of great benefit to both the organisation and its customers. E-Government can deliver many savings and efficiencies. It can speed up processes, enabling public interaction with public bodies to take place in a more efficient environment. There are many excellent high-profile and successful implementations of on-line services, such as motor taxation, Bord Gáis, the Property Registration Authority and — I suppose the biggest and most popular of all — the Revenue on-line service. They are all services being widely used by the general public, and tremendous savings have been made through them.

Of course, more can be done. I suppose we can use the old cliché — a lot done but more to do — and I am sure that more will be done in future. I envisage, for example, applications for housing grants, access to our health services, passport applications, and applications for haulage and driving licences being available on-line if people put their heads together and are in a position to move forward with different projects. There are many intelligent and innovative people who can, and I am sure will, implement such projects.

I know that the Comptroller and Auditor General has recommended that future initiatives should concentrate on supporting and strengthening those who are currently falling behind in the provision of e-Government services. It is important that we give as much commitment as possible to supporting e-Government services, and organisations that have shown initiative, talent and application in delivering e-Government projects should be congratulated. There is scope for those people to become involved in other public sector organisations and share their knowledge of delivering e-Government.

There is a wealth of knowledge that can be shared to the benefit of us all as we constantly seek to improve efficiency and effectiveness. A European Commission report issued just last week suggested that 60% of public services across the European Union are now fully available on-line. More than 96% of European schools are now connected to the Internet, two thirds of which are via broadband, which is up from just over zero in 2001. In the health sector, 57% of doctors now send or receive patient data electronically, with 46% receiving results from laboratories electronically.

The report shows that some countries, such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Malta and Portugal, offer 100% of basic public services for businesses on-line. Although we have achieved much in Ireland, we acknowledge that we still have a lot more to do in that sector. The European Commissioner for Information Society and Media has welcomed the connectivity figures, and all EU countries must work hard to close the gaps and enhance cross-border communication services as well as services that reach rural and remote regions.

By its nature, e-Government is a constantly changing phenomenon. We cannot rest on our laurels, as e-Government is central to shaping how we evolve as an information society. Progress in this area is increasingly seen internationally as a key indicator of wider information services. I welcome the fact that the Government is focused in particular on the delivery of integrated public services to the customer, on improved internal efficiencies and back-office administration, and on stimulating wider engagement with information and communications technologies in the business community and the public in general. The Government is committed to the objective of having all key public services that are capable of it being delivered on-line.

Just before I finish, I will throw a spanner in the works on e-voting which was referred to. I do not take issue with or want to be flippant about e-voting, but we never intended to have e-voting. I understand e-voting would be on-line voting, which was never planned. We were talking about electronic voting, and I regret that we did not proceed with that. We were trying to achieve perfection and we could not do that — no more than we have perfection in our present system. Coming from a constituency in which one seat was decided on one vote and a bundle of 70 votes were spoiled because they were not stamped, I know that the current system is far from perfection. That could not have happened if we had taken the other route. I rest my case.

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