Ireland Tops EU E-Government Survey

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

21 June 2002

A study of governmental Internet services across the EU carried out for the European Commission by independent consultants Cap Gemini Ernst and Young has put Ireland top of the 18 countries covered, with a score of 84.72%, several points ahead of runner-up Sweden, and well in front of the average score was 54.25%.

The consultants ranked countries under 23 public service headings, including car registration, enrolment in higher education, VAT declaration and public procurement. . Ireland scored maximum marks in 12 of the categories, doing particularly well in 'citizen services', achieving almost double the European average, and coming second in services to business.

The government's Information Policy Unit says that Ireland's success was largely due to the services available on the www.reachservices.ie portal site and the Revenue's On-line Service (ROS). Reach allows users to access a range of public sector information and services, while ROS allow companies and individuals to file tax returns over the Internet.

This is the second time that Ireland's e-government initiatives have earned such high marks from the EU. In November 2001, a similar benchmarking exercise found that Ireland had the most comprehensive and widely used on-line government services in Europe. At that time, the EU was particularly impressed with ROS, which scored maximum points in the study.

Minister for the Information Society Mary Hanafin welcomed the results and said: "It is yet another testament to our progress in delivering on-line public services to citizens and businesses, and the results are an independent endorsement of Ireland's progress towards our objective of becoming a world leader in e-government and e-commerce."

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