Ireland has moved a step closer to implementing its flagship eCabinet project, following the decision to engage with consultants In.vision to work with key players to build the system. A presentation on the new model was made to Cabinet last month and the Government were strongly supportive. The system provides for electronic circulation of memoranda, briefing documents and the government agenda before Cabinet meetings, as well as access to documents during meetings via touch-screen terminals. Innovative input tools will also allow Ministers to reply to e-mails by simply hand writing a reply which can then be e-mailed at the touch of a button.

Based on an XML infrastructure, the system will be one of the most advanced of its kind, since it will also electronically support the document drafting and inter-departmental consultation processes.

eCabinet is a collaboration between the Department of the Taoiseach and CMOD (Department of Finance). It is also high on the priorities of the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Mary Hanafin, T.D. who views it as a key driver and exemplar of Information Society development.

Motorists will shortly be able to avoid the queues at motor tax offices by renewing their vehicle tax on-line. The system, which is due to be launched by the Department of the Environment in April 2003, will see motorists receive a PIN and a Web site address as part of their renewal notice. They can enter the PIN number at the site and pay for their motor tax over the Internet using a credit card.

According to Fred Bradley, principal officer for IT in the Department, the system will be able to handle 65 percent of current motor tax transactions. Take-up of 10 percent is predicted for its first year, which would amount to EUR50 million going through the on-line system.

As well as improving the service for motorists, the system should also cut waiting times for people who want to use the counter service in motor tax offices. The Department is also looking at introducing a call-centre offering where customers would simply phone in their details and pay using a credit card.

The EUR700,000 on-line system, to be developed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, will initially be introduced in selected motor tax districts and will be available nationwide within a month or two of its initial launch.

A new system that lets GPs in the Southern Health Board area view blood test results via the Internet will make a "huge difference" to patient care in the region. According to Ursula O'Sullivan, IT/EU manager in the SHB, the GP Linkage Program will dramatically reduce the amount of time that doctors must wait for blood test results, from at least one week to around one day.

The system will inform GPs when results have been processed and then let them access details via the SHB's extranet or the Government's Virtual Private Network. As well as improving patient care, says O'Sullivan, it will also free up lab technicians who now must handle enquiries about blood test results from around 280 GPs. Rollout of the system, which cost around EUR180,000 to develop, will start to practices in the SHB region by the end of October and will be available in the South Eastern Health Board region by mid-December. A national rollout over the next 18 months is planned.

Ireland's coordinators for Netd@ys Europe 2002 are encouraging submissions for this year's event, taking place from 18 to 24 November. Now in its sixth year, Netd@ys has become of the world's largest showcases for using new media, including the Internet, as teaching and learning resources in the areas of education and culture. This year's theme is "Image," and projects can be registered on-line on the Netd@ys Web site. Approved projects will receive the official Netd@ys label. Anyone can take part, with those in the 15 to 24 age group especially encouraged to join in. Netd@ys in Ireland is co-ordinated by Léargas.

The Government has rolled out an intranet-based reporting system to help Agencies and Departments keep track of progress on Ireland's latest Information Society Action Plan, New Connections.

Published in April, the Plan outlines key steps toward making e-Ireland a reality. These include making broadband Internet access widely available, and letting citizens do business with the Government via phone, Internet or in person, whether they are applying for licences, making tax payments or filing company documents.

To monitor progress towards the complex set of initiatives outlined in the plan, the Government is using a browser-based reporting tool to allow authorised persons to provide input and view work in progress. Developments are tracked on projects related to the seven nominated strands of the Plan -- Telecommunications Infrastructure, Legal & Regulatory Environment, eGovernment, eBusiness, R & D, Lifelong Learning and eInclusion -- and on new projects that have arisen since the Plan's publication.

The tool will facilitate a live snapshot of the current state of play across the board. It will also facilitate on-line quarterly progress reports on the Action Plan, the first of which is expected to be published in November. Access to the system is permission-based, which means authorised persons can input information, while Department heads can view management-level reports, and other stakeholders have limited read-only access. The reporting system was developed by System Dynamics.

Sixty-three percent of high-performing companies have saved between ten and nearly 15 percent in procurement budgets by using e-procurement systems. This compares to three percent of low-performing companies who have achieved similar savings in the same range. (Benchmark Research Company July 2002)

Approximately eight US states have established e-procurement initiatives and several more are in the process of undertaking them. California, which spends USD4 billion annually, estimates its cost savings at USD200 million per annum. Maryland, Virginia, Michigan, Washington DC, and Washington state all have initiatives underway, as do Hawaii, Massachusetts, Utah and Colorado. (State of North Carolina August 2002)

A survey of 168 companies using e-procurement revealed an average savings of 42 percent in purchasing transaction costs. (Stanford University June 2002)

Limerick County Council's Integrated Planning Application Information System has over 10,000 planning applications, as well as location-based data and related documents, scanned into it, all of which can be viewed via a PC. Applicants and their agents can access the intranet system to view their application's progress and any queries raised about it.

Brian Beck, executive planner, Limerick County Council, said the system has increased the transparency of planning decisions and reduced the workload for planning officers. The biggest hurdle in the system's implementation, he noted, was re-vamping the department's admin procedures. "We had to ensure that every single piece of paper that was in the office or that came into the office was scanned and put in the right file. It was a massive task, but without it, the system wouldn't have had any integrity," he said.

Users can access the system in the County Council's headquarters, area offices and councillors' offices, and soon in libraries. It will be rolled out to agencies such as Duchas and An Taisce shortly, and it is also hoped that it will be available via the Web within the next year.

In development for nearly three years, the system won a best practice in eGovernment award from the EU in November 2001 and was a finalist in the prestigious Stockholm Challenge 2002.

With the support of Enterprise Ireland, the Louth-based manufacturer of woollen ladies outer-garments and furnishings replaced its previous brochure site with a new EUR60,000 Web site to let its 400 stockists make batch orders and view its latest product lines.

With 70 percent of its business from markets like the UK, US and Japan, Porterhouse felt the Web could be used to promote products to prospective and new customers, and provide information to clients more cost-effectively. And indeed the investment did pay dividends, says Financial Controller Dermot Marron, by increasing exposure for the company's products and eliminating the EUR10,000 annual expense of print brochures.

The company also saw benefits from introducing company wide e-mail, which helped staff communicate better with each other and customers.

But Porterhouse also learned valuable lessons -- for instance, more research with clients would have revealed that in this most tactile of businesses, most clients prefer to feel the goods first and so are not eager to buy directly on-line.

Another lesson learned was in dealing with the e-commerce supplier. Porterhouse sought pitches from two Web designers, and although the final product was very good, Marron said the company split just six months later, leaving Porterhouse without after-sales support. Choosing a more established supplier could have helped avoid this, he said.

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UK - STG30 million is to be spent on trials of electronic voting over the next three years. Already 30 councils have held e-voting trials in local and mayoral elections, letting citizens vote on-line, by text message, via digital TV or at touch-screen kiosks. It's hoped the first e-enabled UK general election will be possible sometime after 2006.

EUROPE - eGovernment services in Europe must cater to the needs of cross-border users, or the development of the single market may be inhibited, said Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, speaking at the IDA conference in Brussels. A pan-European eGovernment portal has just been launched, including information on cross-border public services in seven EU states.

BELGIUM - New ID cards with embedded digital certificates could dramatically change the way Belgian citizens interact with government. The cards will let citizens combine transactions like e-banking, paying taxes and electronic voting. The move may set a precedent for the adoption of electronic ID cards across Europe, but the concept could also spark new privacy concerns.

NEW ZEALAND - Final stress testing is ongoing prior to the launch of the country's long-awaited electronic public services portal. The launch, expected in November, follows a number of setbacks, particularly with regard to the portal's search engine. New Zealand's government has faced media criticism after its poor performance in international eGovernment benchmarking studies.