Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 150: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if he will provide details of the student email project undertaken by HEANet, Ireland's National and Education Research Network, including the full details of all moneys expended on the project to date including current maintenance or support contracts; when this money was paid along with full details of the uses made of the student email project to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35280/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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My Department is providing broadband connectivity to recognised primary and post-primary schools under the Schools Broadband Access Programme. This programme is being undertaken in partnership with industry in the context of a Government — IBEC/TIF (Telecommunications and Internet Federation) Agreement to provide local broadband connectivity to schools. The Programme has three elements — local connectivity to schools, a national broadband network and a broadband support service desk. Schools connectivity is being routed to the Internet through a national broadband network, which is supported by HEAnet. The broadband support service desk has been established to interface between the network, the local broadband service Access Providers and schools. It is managed by the National Centre for Technology in Education (NCTE). In addition to connectivity, the National Broadband Network, supported by HEAnet, provides centrally managed services for schools such as security, anti-spam/ anti-virus and content filtering.

Tenders were invited for the delivery, installation, commissioning and maintenance of an email service for the National Broadband Network in September, 2004 and the subsequent contract was signed in November, 2005. Following the infrastructural build for the project and the piloting of the system, HEAnet signed-off on the service in September, 2006. While the contract provided for the system management for the first year, HEAnet have been supporting the system in-house from the first renewal date.

The costs of the email service to date are €476,750 (exclusive of VAT) which include the hardware and software components and the professional services for build and training on the system. A further €72,000 was expended on the first year externally managed service, as was provided for in the contract. As the email service is built primarily of open-source software components, there are no ongoing software license fees other than that which applies for the commercial anti-spam service element (currently €5,000 per annum). HEAnet hosts the email service hardware, along with the other hardware associated with the Schools Broadband Network, at a HEAnet data centre facility and my Department meets the associated hosting costs. The particular costs of hosting the hardware acquired for the email service is approximately €60,000 per annum.

While the spam scanning component of the service is generally available to schools, only those schools that participated in the pilot phase currently have access to the email service. My Department will continue to consider the future potential for the wider application of the email service.