Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I welcome the motion tabled by Fine Gael. It brings into sharp perspective the work that needs to be done in bringing Government and local authority structures kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Although there are some outstanding examples of e-Government — particularly the Revenue site, which stands head and shoulders above the rest — there is an awful lot to be done in other areas. The composite motion that has been worked on by our Chief Whip, Deputy Coveney and others points in the right direction to what I think will be consensus in this Chamber on where we should be going.

I have taken an interest in the web since I first ran for Dáil Éireann in 1997 and had a web page. In those days, it was considered quite unusual for an individual or corporate entity to have an on-line presence. In 2008, it would be remiss of anybody not to have some on-line presence. However, it never ceases to amaze me how badly bodies and institutions can run their on-line services. There are simple rules and procedures that anybody who has an on-line presence should follow. Those include having a home page link on the top of every page and having links that are clearly visible.

The example that I want to bring into the debate is that of my own Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. There are significant problems with its website. The individual links do not appear in the browser, so we cannot cut and paste a link and send it to somebody else. The search function is almost useless, so we cannot readily find information from the site. There may well be a site index accessible from the home page, but I have not found it yet. There may well be an organogram on the home page that shows users how Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is supposed to work, but it does not seem to be there. There are other aspects, such as having a clear organisational directory that shows people who is in charge and what their e-mail addresses and telephone numbers are. Those things are basic, and that information should be available on the local authority's website.

In fairness, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council website is by no means the worst. Some county and town councils have websites that go back to the early 1990s, with "Under Construction" flashing and men with spades digging furiously, with links that do not work, and with web-hit counters that flash off the page. Even the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council website has scroller contents that go zooming around the page, which people have to snap at before they can find the relevant links.

I say all this in order to point out that, for the most part, the private sector is streets ahead in using electronic means of communicating, buying and selling, wheeling and dealing and telling people what something is about. There is an awful lot that we can learn from it. There is an awful lot that Dáil Éireann can learn too, as we are not beyond reproach either. Some websites have not changed since the 2007 election and, in some cases, the 2002 election. I wish those Deputies well. I am delighted that they can survive without a significant on-line presence.

On a more serious note, I think the report at the heart of the motion contains a huge amount of information from which we can learn. There are certainly examples of good practice, such as people being able to renew their motor tax on-line. Simple tasks can be done very well electronically, but it is the more complex activities of national and local government that need a large amount of time and information put into them. I have no doubt that there are enormous advantages to be gained by putting significant resources into electronic Government. There are ideas I would not be so enthusiastic about, such as electronic voting without a voter verifiable audit trail, but in downloading forms and such like there are good examples that we can learn from in other counties, other Departments and abroad to allow us to revolutionise the way that Government works. I look forward to that happening.

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