The five judges who travelled to Castlebar, Co Mayo, last week to assess the town's application to become Telecom Eireann's Information Age Town were left in no doubt about local support for the project. Castlebar is one of four shortlisted towns in the competition. The others are Ennis, Killarney and Kilkenny. The lucky winner will be wired up by Telecom to take full advantage of the communications revolution; with the Internet in every house, high-speed ISDN telephone lines and other advantages. The winner is expected to be announced by the end of this month.
Several thousand people crowded into the town's mall to welcome the judges, Telecom Eireann's chief executive, Mr Alfie Kane; the chief executive of Forbairt, Mr Dan Flinter; the president of DCU, Dr Danny O'Hare; the professor of electronics at UCD, Prof Sean Scanlon, and the head of corporate relations at Telecom, Mr Gerry O'Sullivan.
The crowd cheered as local speakers extolled the virtues of Castlebar. The many banners included one which read: "Beam me up, Capt Alfie".
According to the chairman of the project team in Castlebar, Mr Richard Wynne, some 5,000 people have visited the information age office in Castlebar, set up earlier this year as part of the town's entry. These included many tourists, some of whom sent "digital postcards" to friends and relatives.
The information age office shows some of the tangible benefits of the new technology, such as video-conferencing and voice-operated computer software.
Meanwhile, Castlebar library has been chosen as a pilot site for a computer learning project sponsored by Microsoft. Under the project, which is worth about £150,000, the library will receive 10 personal computers which will be linked in a network and give users access to the Internet.
It will also get a copy of all the Microsoft software, including CD-ROMs. Training in the use of the Internet, sending messages by E-mail and creating Web pages, will also be available.