Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 315: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the position in regard to the development of the e-government project; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34964/05]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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This Department's e-government programme consist of the following projects.

MAPS, minerals application and programme support, provides for the management of activities in exploration and mining in the State and for the marketing and promotion of inward investment. The first on-line, web presence supporting the application and payment for a prospecting licence and associated GIS services went live in December 2002 and is located at www.dcmnronline.ie. This on-line website was superseded in January 2004 with an enhanced website located at www.minex.ie. The initial release of the fully integrated MAPS system including the end-to-end processing for prospecting licences went live on 4 April 2005. This system is not yet fully operational pending completion of several enhancements. These enhancements are being tested with a view to the system being fully operational by end 2005.

IFIS, integrated fisheries information system, has been developed to support the needs of users across the sea fisheries division. It provides full integration of the business processes of the various sections within sea fisheries. Phase 1 of the system went live in March 2005. This included the intranet back-office system for managing sea fisheries and fishing vessel licensing and registration. The e-service to enable customers submit sea fishing licence applications on-line is scheduled for delivery in early 2006.

CoZAS, coastal zone administration system is a licensing processing system which will enable the issuing of licences to customers who wish to carry out various economic activities in the coastal zone. The system will also enable customers of the Department to apply for coastal zone licences over the web. Phase 1 of the project went live in the coastal zone division last month. Phase 2, which includes a geographical information system, payment and Internet functionality, is scheduled for release in 2006.

The corporate vessel register will collect, manage and disseminate information intrinsic to seafaring vessels regardless of whether the vessels are engaged in mercantile, commercial fishing, passenger transport, research, defence and/or leisure activities. Phase 1 of this project is intrinsically linked to the SafeSeaNet Ireland Project. This project is associated with the European Maritime Safety Agency which is tasked with co-ordinating the communication of seafaring activities between EU member states.

SafeSeas Ireland will provide the framework from 2006 for exchanging messages, notifications and alerts between member states related to defined categories of vessels. System users will be entities such as port authorities with responsibility for managing international maritime traffic on behalf of their national authorities.

The Department makes extensive use of geographical information systems and has developed a high quality technical infrastructure and many key datasets. The Department has built up a spatial database approaching 1 terabyte and geographical information systems functionality has been deployed via the intranet to every PC user in the Department.

This geographical information system already underpins the MAPS Internet system and will be utilised in the Internet applications for all other Departmental on-line systems. The integrated petroleum affairs system will enhance the management of petroleum affairs division's customer needs, applications, licences, geophysical data and documentation. The project is at planning stage.