Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

The weather is much better there so they can do that. If one compares how the private sector has reflected on the way in which modern society lives and interacts with how the Government has responded it is clear we are lagging behind as in so many other sectors. For most people time is at a premium. It is no longer good enough to provide essential public services from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. or 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. as is sometimes available or to allow planners be accessed by the public for two or three hours two days per week, which is the case in many local authorities. It is no longer acceptable when we know we can provide these services in a much more cost effective way in terms of how we spend taxpayers' money that we do not do it.

A recent survey conducted by a local authority in the UK stands over the figure that it is 50 times less expensive to provide basic services on-line on average than it is to provide those services on a face to face basis, employing somebody to meet a member of the public.

This motion may sound somewhat technical and a little boring but it is hugely important and relevant to our everyday lives. It is about facilitating often basic and useful tasks, such as reporting a pothole or a faulty public light over the computer from home. It is about creating the capacity for citizens to apply for planning permission on-line. It was pointed out last night that we have the ridiculous situation of most local authorities providing a good information service where one can go on-line and look at planning applications and the detail of them but one cannot apply for planning permission or make an objection on-line. One can see the detail but one has to get into one's car and travel down to the local authority and fill out a form before making a comment or an objection. That is the kind of nonsensical, non-joined-up thinking that currently exists. It is about people waiting at a bus stop accessing, via PDA, information on when the next bus is due or whether it is stuck in traffic. It is about reporting a crime to one's local Garda station on-line as opposed to waiting until it opens next morning. It is about applying for a new passport or a new television licence. One can renew one's television licence on-line but not get a new one, yet we are trying to stamp out the practice of people not paying their television licence fee.

It is about applying and paying for, in one transaction, driving licences, student grants, housing grants, birth certificates, marriage certificates and a whole range of other basic services that we should be able to access at home in the evening after work while spending time with our families. It is about getting registered to vote without having to go to a Garda station, the local authority or one's local TD. It is about GPs being able to access patient records from hospitals and vice versa, hospitals being able to access patient records in accident and emergency departments if somebody comes in unconscious as a result of a car crash. Instead, in the accident and emergency departments, there is a scramble to find out who is the person's GP. That information should be available on a centralised health computer system so that when people from Cork are in Dublin and get sick or have an accident and go to a local doctor their information is available on a database. These are the practical solutions e-Government can provide. That is why this motion is important even though technically boring.

These are not projects that should be promoted because Ireland needs to be seen to be embracing technology, although that is important in terms of the image we send out to the rest of the world, but because through technology we can deliver better Government that takes account of modern living and because it can deliver services in a far more cost effective way. E-Government or modernisation in Government is about delivering better government. That is why it is important.

Individual local authorities and individual public bodies in different parts of the country are developing their own IT processes independently of one another. We will face the difficulty of trying to co-ordinate all of those at a later stage, the issues Deputy Bruton pointed out earlier, if we do not take charge centrally.

I thank the Minister for agreeing a joint motion with me on which we both worked and made compromises. We have got what we want as an Opposition in terms of content in our motion. I thank the Minister for that. That is not to say this is a rubber-stamping of the Government's future strategy on e-Government. We will seek to ensure that all of what we have achieved in this motion is delivered on time as set out, that the targets set out are delivered, that the delivery and accountability system is put in place and the security system for people's data is put in place. In the past two years, 123 items holding personal data, including laptops, memory sticks and mobile telephones, have been stolen across 15 Departments. We have a serious data protection problem which must be addressed through a detailed, comprehensive code of conduct. Let us have delivery on this issue. I look forward to following developments, now that we have agreed a framework within which progress is to be made.

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