Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is much merit in creating a shared Government data services centre. I have been looking at the area of public procurement and data collection, analysis and review in this area needs to be improved. A shared data centre could help to improve the interoperability of public administrative databases and could help cut down on data entry and the collection of duplicate data. As part of the drive towards digitisation, efforts are being made to cut down on paper records as these are seen as less efficient. However, it is equally inefficient to have multiple people across multiple Departments collecting the same, or similar, information. I welcome the data centre on that basis but I do, however, have concerns as to how it will operate. I apologise; while I did listen to the Minister's response, for the sake of absolute clarity, will he confirm that the centre will be State-run and not run by a private provider?

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