Dublin needs leadership to become top e-city

Dublin as an e-city? It's an easy buzzword concept for politicians, analysts and the media but open to much scoffing from the public. It's not hard to see why: no one has any idea what the term is supposed to mean and many, probably rightly, suspect it to be simply empty rhetoric, shorthand for the lack of concrete ideas or plans.

That's where a fascinating and comprehensive report, published this week, comes to the rescue.

Produced by Iona co-founder and chairman Dr Chris Horn and his e-city working group for the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, the report almost seems to have been a stealth project, so low-profile was it kept until now. But what a project.

At more than 100 pages, the report, Dublin as a World-Class e-City, is detailed, fact-filled, analytical, hard-hitting and a fresh, clean breeze of purposeful writing.

And it does what other reports and a plethora of speeches have singularly failed to do: it describes the qualities, services and infrastructure that go in to making a city a digital centre - not wishy-washy information-age aspirations but quantifiable attributes that the report defines and evaluates.

These include leadership, infrastructure, labour supply, entrepreneurship, the legal and regulatory framework, capital availability, taxation and incentives, and the digital divide. And then, the report benchmarks Dublin in each of these areas against six other cities: Copenhagen, Dubai, London, Singapore, Tel Aviv and Washington DC.

Dr Horn, who prefers to be seen as the facilitator of the large working group rather than its chair, says: "We felt the starting point should be some attempt to benchmark Dublin against these cities." Some, such as Dubai, Singapore and Tel Aviv, were chosen because they are seen globally as leaders in adopting digital-era policy. Others, such as Washington, were included because the Dublin Chamber of Commerce has established relationships with those cities' chambers.

Where does Dublin fall? "Somewhere in the middle," says Dr Horn.

Along with London, Tel Aviv and Washington, Dublin leads in entrepreneurship. But the city is extremely weak in some predictable areas: leadership on the whole digital issue; the availability of capital, particularly seed capital for start-ups; the build-out of supportive infrastructure; and attempts to address the digital divide.

Dublin is about halfway there in terms of its labour supply, its taxes and other incentives, and its legal and regulatory structures, according to the report.

Leadership is the issue that most concerns Dr Horn, although he is somewhat reluctant to highlight one area at the expense of any other.

"There's little doubt that there's tremendous support for having an e-city but there's no clear leader in Government taking action on this. We need a very front-facing politician, if not the Taoiseach, taking a leadership role with this. I don't think it works to have a senior civil servant or a leader from the private sector."

Another great concern of the group is the Government's delay in bringing in its proposed Communications Bill.

"The whole committee - and that includes most of the telecoms operators - felt that it was extraordinary that the Communication Bill wasn't implemented," he says. He is deeply worried that it has not yet been published and may not be introduced in the New Year either.

The Bill would improve the transparency of the planning process and fast-track infrastructure projects.

"There is not sufficient coordination between national government and local authorities, and the Communication Bill would help regulate this," he says, pointing to long delays in large-scale projects because of endless local planning appeals.

Another obvious area addressed by the report is Dublin's infrastructure.

"We are clearly falling behind in broadband access, not at the big business level but for SMEs and consumers," says Dr Horn.

The issue is so broad that the committee chose not to propose specific solutions.

"There's so much that needs to be done and, at the end of the day, that revolves around the last mile (unbundling the local loop). We put forward a few ideas and suggestions but the best thing now is for the operators to come together for discussions with the State." He is reluctant to assign blame for the current situation, but notes that "perhaps if there had been clearer, more strategic thinking between the operators and Government. . . It comes back, I think, to the need for a leader."

Although the situation in the Republic has improved enormously in recent years, capital funding remains a great difficulty for start-up companies, he says, which places limits on the developing entrepreneurial climate in Dublin. Funding has largely dried up, with venture capitalists "largely preserving their existing portfolios".

Dr Horn says he thinks the banks and pension funds should consider new seed capital programmes, while "there's a role for Enterprise Ireland to enter at an earlier stage".

One of the intriguing parts of the report is its examination of Eircom's information-age town, Ennis. This large-scale project has thrown up some interesting conclusions about the introduction and usage of technology by a concentrated but partly rural population, says Dr Horn.

Most prominent is "how much of a community spirit has been fostered", with people using the internet to communicate, share pictures and document their community. But he believes the experience also points out that PCs are clumsy devices for internet access because they aren't mobile.

Many of the report's conclusions on addressing the digital divide - encouraging inclusiveness through the use of technology - are based on the Ennis experiment.

Dr Horn says the idea for the report, which kicked off last January and, since May, has been through nearly a dozen drafts, originated with Mr Alfie Kane, the outgoing Eircom chief executive who also chairs the Dublin Chamber of Commerce.

"He felt it was time the whole e-city issue was looked at."

Given that Eircom is often targeted by critics as a hindrance to resolving many of the infrastructure issues noted in the report, wasn't he surprised at his suggestion? "My initial reaction was slight astonishment," he laughs. "But he tried to reassure me and I got the sense that he has a real personal concern and commitment."

Dr Horn acknowledges that there were times when he wondered why he'd shouldered such a large project. But he says he enjoyed the enthusiasm of the participants and the "tremendous spirit of cooperation".

He'd like to see the report, which will be available eventually from the Chamber of Commerce website, in the hands of agencies, strategists and tacticians in Government and the regulatory bodies.

And mostly, "We'd obviously like to stimulate public discussion. Especially as we approach a general election."