John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide details of all websites under his remit; the annual cost of maintaining each website; the average number of hits per month on each site for the past year; his views on whether these websites can be rationalised to bring about cost savings without compromising eGovernment objectives; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37942/11]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The annual cost of maintaining my Department's website in 2011 will be approximately €27,500. This figure includes the cost of an annual maintenance contract, a search engine licence and the Department's contribution to the Local Government Computer Services Board (LGCSB) for hosting the website. In the past year a total of 979,299 individual visitors made 1,620,304 visits to this site, a monthly average of 135,000 visits.

The Deputy may wish to note that my Department is currently completing a tendering process to develop a new high quality public website to replace the existing site.

In addition to the Department's public website my Department:

- Maintains the European Social Funds website (www.esf.ie) as part of the Information and Publicity requirements of the ESF regulations. It is the main source of information (regulations, circulars, progress of the funds, etc.) for implementing bodies and beneficiaries of the fund in Ireland and to the general public. The annual cost of maintaining the site in 2010 was €3,300 - half of this cost is borne by the EU Commission via the ESF itself. There have been on average 840 visits to this website per month in the past year.

- Maintains a separate legacy website relating to a specific ESF programme, the EQUAL Community Initiative (www.equal-ci.ie), at a nominal cost of €185 in 2010 to ensure that ongoing audit obligations/requirements can be fully met.

- Pays annual nominal recurring fees totalling approximately €315 in order to retain two Early Years Education related websites on-line. The www.cecde.ie website relates to the Centre for Early Childhood Development and Education which ceased operations in 2008, while the www.siolta.ie website relates to Síolta - The National Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education in Ireland. In the past year there were 100,889 visits to the www.siolta.ie site which translates to a monthly average of 8,400 visits.

- Developed a new website www.energyeducation.ie (in partnership with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland) in order to expedite claims and streamline the application process for the Energy Efficiency Scheme announced in May 2009 (this scheme is now closed). The cost of maintaining this website in 2011 was €30 + VAT. In the past year there have been on average approximately 1,750 visits to this site per month.

The Deputy will note that, excluding the Department's public website, the level of recurring annual expenditure with regard to the websites mentioned above is not substantial.