A major report by the State's spending watchdog on the Government's ambitious "e-Government" project has revealed that only half of the projects were fully operational six months after the deadline had been reached.
And the report of Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) John Purcell also disclosed that 23 of the 141 flagship projects to provide Government services online were abandoned and that a further 44 were only partly implemented by mid-2006.
In addition, the overall estimated cost of €420 million was some 20 per cent above budget, while, on average, the projects had taken 25 per cent longer to complete than originally envisaged.
The C&AG's findings were made public yesterday and quickly led to the main Opposition parties comparing e-Government to other Government projects heavily criticised for overspending or inordinate delays - namely decentralisation; electronic voting; and the Ppars payroll and personnel system.
The chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Fine Gael's Bernard Allen, said he was very concerned that so many projects had been abandoned or had run into serious cost-overruns.
"There is evidence of a waste of a substantial amount of taxpayers' money arising from poor planning; high costs; and long delays. The committee will pursue this matter vigorously with the accounting officers of the relevant departments," he told The Irish Times.
Mr Purcell said the Government had set itself a target of having all public services online by the end of 2005 but he insisted this was clearly unrealistic. There had been considerable impetus behind the project in its initial stages, but that progress slowed in later years, he added.
However, the C&AG points out that there have been several signal successes - most notably the Revenue Commissioners revenue online service (ROS). About 300,000 customers paid their taxes online in 2005. Other services such as motor tax online and an animal health computer system have also been successful.
The report also notes that many projects "proceeded more slowly than planned. A substantial number did not proceed or were abandoned after starting."
Planned projects that were abandoned included online applications for housing grants; passports; haulage licences; a health services portal (suspended six months after being launched, having cost €2 million); and driving licences.
Mr Purcell singles out the Public Services Broker, envisaged as a facility for public service providers to share data. It would also act as a "one-stop shop" for the public - through the website www.reachservices.ie - to access all services provided by Government, State agencies and local authorities.
The original estimate for this project was €14 million but its final cost was €37 million, almost three times higher than envisages.
Mr Purcell says it delivers a limited range of services, has not become a self-service mechanism for the public, and has high running costs of between about €15 million per year.
"The feasibility of the project was not examined early on, planning was weak and implementation has been far slower and more costly than was anticipated," Mr Purcell concludes.
Overall, he is critical of the two departments which played a key role in the development of e-Government, those of Taoiseach and of finance, for not setting measurable targets.
In defending the strategy, the Government argued that it was reasonable to set targets that were ambitious "even to the extent of leaning towards the aspirational".
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said the report illustrated the Government's dismal track record on major projects. "The same old weaknesses are emerging in e-Government that have been seen in other Fianna Fáil disasters such as e-voting," Mr Bruton said.
Labour Party deputy leader Joan Burton said the report raised very serious questions about Government competence.
