Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

That is true. I do not believe it made an impact nor do I believe blogging is an effective method of communicating one's message. Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves but it was worth experimenting. I did three or four podcasts which are still available to anybody who may have interest in this type of thing. They would be very helpful to anybody who is having trouble sleeping at night.

Much has been done in the e-Government area. Deputy Michael McGrath referred to the Basis website which tells one how to set up a creche if one is stuck for details in that regard. It also tells one where to get funding. There is an excellent section on sources of grants for people starting up businesses and for feasibility studies, etc. The Citizens Information Board website provides excellent information. All of these sites are conspiring to put Deputies out of business altogether because the information we used to provide on parish pump type issues is now readily available. Nevertheless, our clinics are still full of people, although with different types of issues.

This debate is very topical because of the OECD report which came out in the past couple of days and which had much to say about e-Government. Some of it was positive while some was negative. Sometimes there is a tendency for the Government to exaggerate the positive and for the Opposition to exaggerate the negative. Therefore, an non-adversarial motion such as this gives Members time to debate an issue in a more mature fashion and allows them to slip quietly into the night because they do not have to vote later. Again, there are positives and negatives in that.

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