Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The deadline referred to in the Deputy's question relates to the cessation of general support for certain Microsoft products in use across a number of Government agencies. My Department has been aware of the forthcoming deadline for some time and has been actively investigating its likely impact on IT systems across the public service.

Responsibility for the delivery of their computing services rests with each organisation.

My Department offers support services only.

With regard to the products in question, organisations have the option of upgrading to a more modern version or finding alternative solutions. Many have already done so by upgrading the systems concerned. These include my Department and the Departments of Finance, Environment, Community and Local Government, Education and Skills and Social Protection.

The Office of the Government Chief Information Officer has engaged with other public bodies and Microsoft regarding the implications of running unsupported software. The discussions focused on the remedial measures that could be put in place and identifying those organisations that wished to be included in an extended support arrangement. As a result, an agreement has been reached with Microsoft to allow Departments and their agencies to avail of extended support for a range of products from 8 April 2014. The agreement will enable public bodies to receive support for these products for a 12 month period under the terms of a memorandum of understanding. The figure of €3.3 million represents a cap on the total cost of such support arrangements for agencies availing of the memorandum of understanding. Initial estimates obtained by my Department put the cost of proceeding with extended support without a central agreement at approximately €14 million.

It is a matter for each agency to avail of the support available under the terms of the memorandum of understanding, which provides them with a one year window of opportunity for migrating their applications and hardware to a more modern and supported operating system. Any agency availing of this agreement must develop a plan to migrate from the affected products before the expiration of the agreement to ensure they will no longer be at risk.

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