Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 552: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of staff in his Department that are provided with a blackberry device or similar mobile e-mail equipment. [34227/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is currently testing the use of mobile e-mail equipment and has provided Blackberry or similar PDA type devices to 15 staff in a test environment. Further significant development of the underlying Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure is required before general secure deployment of such devices. This work has commenced and will continue over the coming year. When completed mobile communication devices will be deployed to staff whose role require the use of such technology.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 553: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of databases used by his Department; and the number of these that are wholly and partly operated by external organisations or individuals and operated solely within his Department. [34242/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The Department administers some fifty separate Social Welfare schemes and makes payments to one million people each week. The nature and volume of its business means that it has responsibility for a significant amount of personal and other data and it is heavily dependent on secure Information Communications Technology (ICT) facilities to provide its services.

The ICT portfolio within the Department includes systems that:

produce payments across multiple schemes

support customer-centric processing including PRSI consolidation

provide administrative capability across the Department

support e-Govt and inter-departmental processing/data exchange and

support line managers on a countrywide basis.

Each of these systems is typically built to use multiple databases and include additional capabilities such as audit, archive etc. In addition, a large number of database copies, for each of the aforementioned categories of systems, are used to support testing efforts — unit, system, user acceptance, performance testing. There are more than 1,000 databases held on the Department's ICT infrastructure, supporting all of the capabilities listed above. Almost all of these databases are operated wholly within the Department by the Department's own staff. A very small number of systems and their supporting databases are operated externally to support the Department's HRMS system and to support the Public Services Broker.

Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 554: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs the number of information technology projects undertaken by or for his Department since 2004 that have been delivered over budget, after their original deadline, on budget, under budget, on their original deadline and ahead of their original deadline; and if he will present the information in tabular readable form. [34257/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The information requested is currently being compiled within the Department and will be made available to the Deputy as soon as possible.