Funferal

Government availability online

I came across this interesting piece on the Daily Yomiuri thanks to OJR’s daily update:

The e-mail newsletter distributed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s Cabinet will mark its 100th issue Thursday, facing steadily decreasing number of readers

Seemingly readership has fallen to 1.8 million subscribers. So is this post about the failure of the Japanese government? Hardly. It’s about the failure of the Irish government to properly harness the internet to serve the Irish public.
On of the more embarrassing things about living through the ‘Celtic Tiger’ was the continual boasts from the government about Ireland’s status as an information society. We were a highly educated society who were comfortable with new technologies, such as the ‘net (in fact the hype around the Celtic Tiger became – somewhat unfairly – difficult to distangle from the internet bubble, which may have contributed to our later rapid fall when that bubble was exposed).
While some departments have provided useful information online – notably Soial Welfare related information – the department of An Taoiseach, our head of government, has been pitiful. The contact email address for the department was for a long time listed as webmaster@taoiseach.gov.ie. It is only recently that proper addresses have been provided (the address for An Taoiseach is taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie). I have never received a reply to any mail sent to the department – not even an autoreply to assure me that the mail has been received!
Further, while press releases are published online (sometimes with considerable delays) when I enquired in mid-2001 about any email updates I was informed that only professional journalists covering the Dail (parliament) brief could get the mails (I was running a current affairs programme for a Dublin radio station at the time on a voluntary basis, but that was not sufficient). I could, however, get all releases by fax (which was of no benefit to me, though I had used the service at Flirt FM). There was nothing I (or any other citizen) could get by email letting me know what was happening with my government. Talk about letting the information revolution pass you by.
Now – and I am happy to see the improvements, belated though they are – it is possible to sign up to a “What’s New Bulletin.” Not sure what content I’ll get with this, or how often I’ll get mails, as there is no explanatory information on the sign-up page, but I’ll be sure to let you know. Oh, and one final thing – the sign-up form (bear in mind this is the Irish government site) won’t allow the accent in my name to be included!