E-City
bbermingham@corkcity.ie www.bbermingham.com
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E-CITY STATUS"That this Council in its desire to arrive at an E-City Status and recognising its early start with an excellent web-site and e-mail provision agrees
Proposer Comhairleoir B.Bermingham -03/28 24th February 2003The City Manager stated that this Council in its desire to arrive at an E-City Status and recognizing its early start with an excellent web-site and c-mail provision agrees:- 1. To proceed with haste in providing a fibre optic / broadband infrastructure. Planning for the Cork city broadband project began in 2002 with the submission of a proposal for funding to central govenment. This project will put in place A backbone broadband network across Cork City. It will provide high-speed Internet connectivity to industry, financial and commercial centres, educational institutions and government and civic offices across the city. The total length of this network is in the order 60 Kilometers and it will make broadband available across a large section of the City's Industrial and Commercial Areas. This project is being funded to the tune of 90% by the Department of Communications, Marine & Natural Resources. The total cost of the project is in the order of 11 million euros. This will position Cork as a high-quality location for international and national investment. Cork will be the first city in the country outside Dublin to commence this project. It is expected that the network will be in place by the end of 2003. This is a huge step forward for Cork City in the run up to being the European City of Culture 2005 The Contract was signed on Monday 10th Feb., with J.J. Boyle Ltd., Contractors, and Edinburgh, Scotland. The Design Consultants are Water land Technologies Ltd., Dublin. 2. To acquire general data on Internet Access within the City of Cork in order to focus on areas with a technological deficit. The major telecommunication operators provide Internet access through out the city and are the most reliable source of statistics. However, for commercial reasons, they have been unwilling to provide this information in the past. The Information Society Commission in their latest report, revealed approx. 57% of Irish households currently have access to the Internet. However a further breakdown, by area within Cork city, is unavailable. In 1999, Cork city council received funding for two such initiatives from the DOELG under the Centenary Community Initiative Award Scheme. The overall aim of both projects is to allow access to information technology to those who otherwise would not have this opportunity. Information Kiosks. These kiosks provide simple easy to use touch screen access to the web sites of Fax, Cork city council and the Southern Health Board. The kiosks are located in Rock Steps, Blarney Street, Mahon Community Action premises, and the Glen Resource Centre. Togher IT Community Centre. The Centre has been open to the public from October last, Monday to Friday. Centre is staffed by a Centre Manager employed by Cork City Council.. The Centre provides a well-equipped and attractive facility adopting a flexible - approach to learning with individuals advancing at their own pace. At present, Smart Skills and ECDL packages etc are available for the local community with tutorial assistance provided by the Centre Manager. Shortly, in partnership with City of Cork VEC, a number of additional tutors will be employed under the Back to Education Initiative to give further support to the project, and allow greater flexibity regarding opening hours. 3. Encourage & facilitate its Citizens with advice and incentives to access Internet connection directly and via the Public Library network in greater numbers Cork City Library currently offers 56 public access Intemet workstations to the public at six locations throughout the city. This service has proved to be enormously successful with members of the public. It has attracted new people into the library service and all 56 terminals are constantly in demand i.e. being used to maximum capacity. Total of public-access Internet workstations Location Central Library 21 [15 bookable + 6 reference source St Mary's Rd. 6 Douglas 9 Hollyhill 8 Mayfield 5 Tory Top Rd, 7 56] 4. To facilitate access to all Cork City Council's services and payments online Access to services via the web site is improving all the time. In 2002, the
publication of the planning lists went on-line. The latest draft of the
development plan has been published on the web site. For the first time the
public can access the library catalogue from the web site and search for the
location of their favourite author or title. The library plan to expand the
service to allow the public to book publications on-line, the technology is now
in place. By the end of this month, an on-line payments facility will be available via the Intranet, which will allow staff in the Pay Parking section, process credit card payments immediately. Cork City Council is working with the Local Government Computer Services Board as a pilot site for this new service. Once this service is tested internally, it can easily be rolled out to the Cork city web site for a variety of payments. By the end of 2003, the public will be able to pay, parking fines, refuse and rate charges over the web site. Pay Parking On-Line Payments Pilot Project: Cork City Council issue in the region of 65,000 parking fines per year. A significant percentage of these (approximately 70%) are paid by means other than cash. The Information Technology Department and the Roads Directorate identified this as an appropriate area to pilot the introduction of on - line credit card payments. Working in conjunction with the Local Government Computer Services Board, a Web front end has been designed and is currently being tested using sample data from the Parking Fines database. This will allow a user query the database using the ticket number and car registration number, which returns the details of the ticket (offence type and location). Then, if appropriate, the fine amount can be paid, the credit card information having been validated. Upon completion of this testing it is proposed that the system would initially be implemented on the Councils internal Intranet for a period to allow staff use and evaluate the system. Thereafter the system will be accessed from the City Councils Web site, the appropriate security measures in place. 5. To facilitate real interaction with Council services via its officials that ensures quality and reasonable timed responses New Contact Management System. Cork City Council implemented a new contact management system in February 2002. The initial objective of the new system is to capture and manage: a. Members correspondence b. Ombudsman enquiries and c. Freedom of Information requests. The system has been rolled out to all directorates in 2002 and people have been assigned and trained in using the application. It is intended to capture all requests from the public in 2003; this is currently being piloted within the Roads Directorate. 6. To facilitate real interaction on important public issues via opinions and E-voting options establishing a non-binding public opinion The public can and do e-mail each Directorate directly with their views and opinions from the web site. The public can also contact their public representatives directly from the web site via e-mail. Other fora also actively being considered 7. Easy and direct linkages to Health, Welfare, Education with access to on- line learning leading to qualification, and other important Public Services. The Cork City Council web site has prominent links to the REACH service site - the new online government service broker. This new service will provide a central access point to the public, where they will be able to access health, welfare, education and other services. The site is currently in the developmental stage but with new services being launched all the time e.g. the Revenue On-Line service, this allows business customers to lodge their tax returns on-line. 8. To facilitate on-line interaction with peoples and commerce of our Twinned Cities. The potential of facilitating on line interaction with our twinned cities is currently being explored on line.
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