Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The 18 step action plan sets out the approach to implementing the public service ICT strategy and momentum on the 18 steps continues to be maintained under the leadership of the Civil Service ICT Advisory Board and its associated working groups. In addition, last week the Government chief information officer held a joint sectoral meeting with the ICT and business transformation leaders’ group from the Department of Health, the HSE, An Garda Síochána, the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government to look at opportunities for joint working across the broader public service.

The key deliverables which can and should be progressed on a State-wide basis include a first version of a Government digital services gateway, a Government data centre strategy, an open data initiative, the development of common services for Departments and a formal plan for adoption of the use of MyGovID to enable citizen access to public services. The Deputy may also wish to note that many of these actions, particularly the development of MyGovID and the digital services gateway, are encapsulated in the egovernment strategy launched in June and align very well with European Commission developments such as the digital Single Market, the egovernment action plan and the general data protection regulation, GDPR.

It is expected that the Department will have spent €19.1 million in implementing the strategy between 2015 and the end of this year. The expenditure represents both current and capital investment in building and supporting a range of infrastructures such as the Government networks service, the build-to-share common applications and the private Government cloud platforms. A further €7.5 million has been provided in budget 2018 for the roll-out of the strategy.

As the Deputy will be aware, the implementation of the EU general data protection regulation is being led by the Department of Justice and Equality, while the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment takes the lead on the issue of cyber security. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform continues to work closely with the national cyber security centre, the State's national governmental computer security incident response team. As mentioned, the strategy consists of a range of projects, each of which will ensure the appropriate data protection and cyber security measures are implemented for the services deployed. In delivering the range of initiative the Department operates a strength-in-depth approach to cyber security and protecting ICT systems, infrastructure and services and continues to work to mitigate emerging threats, risks, vulnerabilities and cyber security issues.

See this speech in context