eolas magazine issue 51 May 2022

Informing Ireland’s decision-makers...

A leader in road safety Road Safety Authority’s Sam Waide Government

Ireland for Finance

Cathaoirleach

CIO Barry Lowry

Committee Secretary

Senator Mark Daly

details efforts to

Karen Cullen

discusses Seanad

establish Ireland

outlines fintech

Éireann centenary

as a digital

opportunities and

and reform

leader

challenges

issue 51 May 22

Environment and climate • Digital government • Fintech

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Green public procurement

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Latest European policy update

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The need for collaborative procurement across public services

David O’Sullivan

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Best practice local government procurement

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Professionalising public buyers

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The impact of Brexit on organisations

Procurement Ireland Claire Downey

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Social procurement

Julie Welsh

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Procurement across the health sector

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The challenge of IT procurement

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Matters arising

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Issues

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Labour leader Ivana Bacik TD outlines her vision

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Cover story: Road Safety Authority’s Sam Waide: 80 81

Round table discussion: Hydrogen: Decarbonising Ireland’s economy 83

Climate and environment 34

Minister Eamon Ryan TD discusses progress, renewable energy, and a just transition

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Catharina Sikow-Magny, European Commission: Decarbonising Europe’s economy

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Úna Fitzpatrick reflects on the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan

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Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly’s proposals to accelerate renewable energy projects

Minister of State Seán Fleming TD outlines Ireland for Finance objectives Karen Cullen, Secretary to the Ireland for Finance Committee on fintech opportunities Technologies shaping the future of fintech Global fintech rankings

Digital government 84

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Fintech 76

A leader in road safety

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84

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Contents

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88 94 100

Minister of State Ossian Smyth TD: Connecting Government 2030 Interview: Government CIO Barry Lowry Harnessing Digital overview CivTech: Europe’s first govtech programme

118 Europe 118 120

European response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine Russian gas

122 Public affairs 122 126 132

Mol an Óige: Claire Kerrane TD Emergency planning powers Meet the media: Sally Hayden

136

Back page: NUJ General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet

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2022 29th-30th June • Croke Park, Dublin Now in its 26th year, Energy Ireland continues to be the major annual event on the Irish energy calendar, attracting influential delegates from across the sector. The conference will bring together all the key stakeholders to discuss and debate the key drivers of the energy transition and the current energy price crunch. It will look forward to the developments for this crucial decade and examine the deployment of developing technologies such as energy storage and green hydrogen.

Key themes for 2022: •

Geopolitical context to the energy transition

•

•

•

•

Charles Wood, Deputy Director, Energy UK

•

Richard Murphy, Partner, Pinsent Masons

•

Siobhán McHugh, Chief Executive Officer The Demand Response Association of Ireland

•

Paddy Hayes, Chief Executive, ESB

•

Aoife MacEvilly, Chairperson, Commission for Regulation of Utilities

•

Malcolm Keay, Senior Research Fellow The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

•

Stephen Wheeler, Managing Director SSE Renewables

•

Andy Kelly, Director, Afry

•

Dr Katja Yafimava, Senior Research Fellow The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies

•

Maria Ryan, Director of Development SSE Renewables

development

•

Dave Kirwan, Managing Director Bord Gáis Energy

•

David Kelly, Director of Customer and Business Development, Gas Networks Ireland

Decarbonising Ireland’s gas

•

Cathal Marley, Group CEO, Ervia

•

network

•

Niamh McGovern, Partner, Arthur Cox

Margie McCarthy, Director of Research and Policy Insights, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

•

Mark Foley, Group Chief Executive, EirGrid

•

•

Tanya Harrington, Chair, Renewable Energy Ireland

Anne Marie Clancy, Principal Officer Department for the Environment, Climate & Communications

•

•

Peter Lantry, Country Managing Director Ireland and Global Data Centre Lead Hitachi Energy

Catherine Sheridan, Chief Operations Officer E1-H2

•

Rory Monaghan, Director, Energy Engineering Programme, NUI Galway & Hydrogen Ireland

•

Cillian O’Donaghue, Policy Director Eurelectric

Improving Ireland’s energy

Developing Ireland’s offshore

Future electricity system

Role of renewable energy technologies in the energy transition

•

Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for the Environment, Climate & Communications William Walsh, CEO, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland

wind energy resources •

• •

security •

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Importance of digital networks in Ireland’s energy future

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Donna Gartland, Chief Executive Officer Codema — Dublin's Energy Agency

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eolas Issue 51 May 2022 Digital

Events

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Editorial Ciarán Galway, Editor ciaran.galway@eolasmagazine.ie

Now or never… o

“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5 C,” affirms Jim Skea, co-chair of the IPCC working group which published Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, the third and final report of its sixth assessment cycle, in April. In other words, without immediate, wholesale, and radical emissions reductions, the slender opportunity of a liveable future will be lost forever.

Greenhouse gas emissions are at the highest recorded level in the history of humanity; over 50 per cent greater than when the IPCC published its inaugural report in 1990. Collectively, we are not doing enough.

Simultaneously, while the discourse may have moved beyond outright climate denial, climate obstruction abounds. Status-quoist economic and political interests seek to disinform, delay, distract, and discourage the necessary change, including fossil fuel phaseout. As per recent frenetic debates regarding active travel infrastructure, parking spaces in the Phoenix Park, the national herd, and turf cutting, resistance to change is as deeply ingrained in Ireland as anywhere.

However, the reality of inaction and subsequent environmental collapse is indescribably worse than what essentially amounts to inconvenience. Describing the latest report as “an atlas of human suffering and damning indictment of failed climate leadership”, UN Secretary General António Guterres insists: “It's time to turn rage into climate action.”

Meanwhile, Ireland has taken an initial step towards the eradication of road fatalities and serious injuries by 2050. In this issue’s cover story interview, Sam Waide, CEO of the Road Safety Authority, outlines his ambition to ensure that Ireland becomes a European leader in road safety.

Additionally, extensive reports on environment and climate, fintech, and digital government are supplemented by interviews with, and contributions from, new Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik TD; Environment and Climate Minister Eamon Ryan TD; Minister of State at the Department of Finance Seán Fleming TD; Ireland for Finance Committee Secretary Karen Cullen; Minister of State with Responsibility for eGovernment Ossian Smyth TD; Government CIO Barry Lowry; and the youngest female TD in the 33rd Dáil, Sinn Féin’s Claire Kerrane.

Ciarán Galway

www.eolasmagazine.ie

Odrán Waldron, Deputy Editor odran.waldron@eolasmagazine.ie David Whelan david.whelan@eolasmagazine.ie Fiona McCarthy fiona.mccarthy@eolasmagazine.ie Advertising Sam Tobin sam.tobin@eolasmagazine.ie Design Gareth Duffy, Head of Design gareth.duffy@eolasmagazine.ie Jamie Hogan jamie.hogan@eolasmagazine.ie Events Lynda Millar lynda.millar@eolasmagazine.ie Become a subscriber!

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The FSC’s Chain of Custody certification provides a way in which the material can be tracked from the certified initial source through the manufacturing process to the end user.

matters arising

P U B L I C A F FA I R S

Gavin and Ní Shúilleabháin named as citizens’ assemblies chairs All-Ireland-winning former Dublin Gaelic football player and manager, Jim Gavin, and assistant professor in the University College Dublin School of Mathematics and Statistics, Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, have been named as the chairs of citizens’ assemblies regarding the possibility of Dublin having a directly elected mayor and biodiversity loss respectively.

Both chairs were appointed following invitations from Taoiseach Micheál Martin, with both assemblies meeting for the first time in April and expected to complete their work by year-end. More than 3,700 applications were received from randomly selected invitations to participate in the new assemblies, a response rate in excess of 10 per cent from the 34,000

randomly selected invitations issued, with letters of confirmation then sent to 99 people for the biodiversity assembly and 67 citizens of Dublin and 12 councillors for the Dublin assembly.

Gavin is, of course, publicly known for having won the 1995 All-Ireland in football as a player and having won six All-Irelands, including the only five-in-a-row in either football or hurling, as a manager; he served in the Defence Forces for 18 years as a commissioned officer and military pilot, he has also worked as a commercial pilot. Ní Shúillebháin’s work in UCD focuses on making science more accessible to wider audience, she is well known as a media figure on science issues.

E D U C AT I O N

Leaving Cert reform to ‘reduce stress on students’ The Minister for Education Norma Foley TD has said that the proposed senior cycle reform plan is a “deliberate move to reduce stress on students”. The reforms, which will be phased in gradually over a number of years, notably include a move away from reliance on final examinations, with no written exam to be worth more than 60 per cent to a student’s final mark.

Two new subjects – drama, film, and theatre studies and climate action and sustainable development – are also to be introduced and piloted by as-yetunnamed schools from September 2024. Curricula will also be gradually updated for subjects across

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the senior cycle, with the content of subjects updated. Updated assessment models in optional subjects such as chemistry, physics, biology, and business will also be piloted.

Plans to make continuous assessment a permanent fixture worth 40 per cent of final marks are likely to prove controversial with teacher unions, who insisted that the assessments carried out during the Covid-19 pandemic were done as a means of support during a time of crisis. Reform of Transition Year is also pledged, along with the establishment of a Senior Cycle Programme Delivery Board, with a detailed implementation plan to follow.

matters arising

P U B L I C A F FA I R S

Automatic enrolment pension system announced

Workers and their employers will both contribute 1.5 per cent of the employee’s salary, with the Government adding €1 for every €3 invested by the worker. Contributions will gradually rise throughout the first 10 years of the scheme, matching 1.5 per

cent of gross salary payments in the first three years, 3 per cent from year four, 4.5 per cent from year seven and 6 per cent from year 10.

Speaking upon the launch of the scheme,

Credit: Defence Forces

The Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys TD has unveiled details of the final design principles for the Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings System for Ireland, with the aim of losing Ireland’s status as the only OECD state without an auto enrolment scheme. Approximately 750,000 workers will be enrolled into the scheme, which will operate on a voluntary opt-out basis.

Humphreys said: “This major reform in the Irish pensions landscape is intended not just to get people saving earlier but to support them in that saving process by simplifying the pension choices and importantly by providing for significant employer and State contributions as well. What we are doing today is putting in place a system whereby people can save for their retirement.”

ENERGY

LNG infrastructure needed to ensure energy security says CRU Ireland must consider putting liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure in place without delay if it is to ensure security for the State’s energy supply, the chairperson of the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, Aoife MacEvilly, has told the Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action.

development of LNG infrastructure, while strategic gas storage to ensure the State had adequate supplies was a separate issue. Both instances would mean increased costs for consumers, but MacEvilly insisted that Ireland “will not decarbonise without this infrastructure”.

MacEvilly said that such a move would not make Ireland dependent on fossil fuels for decades to come, as LNG facilities could be adapted to cater for green hydrogen and added that it was timely to speak of green hydrogen production from offshore windfarms given the current energy crisis and the State’s lack of current energy security. On the March day on which she was speaking, Ireland’s 5,000MW of renewable capacity was providing “as little as 19MW” due to calm weather.

When it was put to the CRU chair by Fianna Fáil TD Christopher O’Sullivan that polar regions are experiencing record temperatures and the CRU should be focusing on the enhancement of renewable and battery storage, MacEvilly stated that “we need all of that” while also ridding the State of oil-fired generation and peat and coal use.

When asked about LNG imports containing fracked gas, Paul McGowan of the CRU stated that LNG would enable “a secure transition to a low-carbon future” but that imported fracked gas was a separate issue.

The chair stated that the CRU favours commercial

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ECONOMY

Dublin Regional Enterprise Plan to 2024 published The Dublin Regional Enterprise Plan to 2024 has been published by the Government, with the plan including projects and initiatives across all four Dublin council areas. The plan will “focus on delivering low-carbon transition, digital transformation, inclusivity to marginalised and disadvantaged communities and cultivate skills and talent to all, to leverage future economic need and growth”.

economic potential; and strengthen Dublin’s ecosystem.

The plan sets out six strategic objectives for its vision for Dublin: strengthen resilience and the potential for scaling amongst Dublin’s SMEs and start-ups; promote context specific, attractive, and adaptive place-making for an evolving world of work and diverse lifestyles, enabling resilience, business recovery, and new opportunities for Dublin; facilitate every individual to realise their full potential through engagement in economic activity; enable and position business as leaders in Dublin’s low-carbon transition; ensure the availability of skills and talent to realise Dublin’s future

In her foreword to the plan, chair of the Dublin Regional Enterprise Plan Steering Committee Susan Spence said: “Dublin will aim to lead in digital transformation and the Plan includes access to suitable hubs, high quality mentoring expertise and clustering opportunities to provide the right environment for SMEs to grow and innovate. A critical element of the Plan is centred around inclusivity with initiatives that are targeted at marginalised and disadvantaged communities to support their pathway to employment or selfemployment.”

To assist the Regional Enterprise Plan, Enterprise Ireland has made over €126 million available in regional enterprise funding since 2018, €12.4 million of which has been approved for the Dublin region under the Regional Enterprise Development Fund and the Regional Enterprise Transition Scheme.

HOUSING

115 homeless deaths in Dublin in 2021 115 homeless people died in Dublin in 2021, new data released under Freedom of Information shows.

The figures show a continuation and steep escalation of homeless deaths in the capital in recent years, more than doubling the 2018 and 2019 totals, which were under 50, and increasing by 39 from 2020, when 76 homeless deaths were recorded. 287 homeless people have died in Dublin since 2018 in total.

Of the 115 dead in 2021, 34 died in long-term accommodation, 23 in private and short-term accommodation, 13 in shielding services, eight in visiting supports, five in housing-first accommodation, five in outreach series, and four who were not availing of any services. In its most recent update to Dublin City councillors, the Dublin

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Regional Homeless Executive said that Covid-19’s impact on these numbers has been limited: “The number of Covid-related deaths has not changed at three residents from long-term supported housing.

As of 16th February, there were 662 confirmed (cumulative) cases within Dublin Homeless Services.”

In the context of increasing homeless deaths in Dublin during 2021, the Government commissioned a report by Austin O’Carroll into the phenomenon.

O’Carroll’s interim report stated that mortality rates could be reduced by ending long-term homelessness, with 68 per cent of single homeless deaths in 2021 being those who were in emergency accommodation for longer than 18 months.

matters arising

F O R E I G N A F FA I R S

Defence Forces cease training of Malian military following atrocities

Circa 20 members of the Defence Forces are deployed in Mali as part of the mission, along with troops from 25 other countries. The mission has been operating since 2013 and is focused on training Malian state forces in their efforts to combat Islamic

extremist groups. While the state forces have been accused of atrocities throughout the conflict, it is the latest reports of 300 civilians being massacred over a five-day period in the town of Moura that have led to the suspension of operations.

Credit: Defence Forces

The Irish Defence Forces have ceased their training of the Malian military in the wake of multiple reports of soldiers killing civilians in the west African country.

After the emergence of reports of atrocities committed by the Malian Armed Forces and the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, the European Union Training Mission (EUTM), which has its headquarters in the Malian capital of Bamako, suspended elements of its mission.

In response, a spokesperson for the Department of Defence said: “In considering our deployment to EUTM Mali, Ireland will continue to operate in close coordination with our EU partners. While certain activities have been suspended, the training mission continues to support the Malian police and gendarmerie.”

ECONOMY

Stability Programme Update shows labour market recovery amidst heavy inflation The Government’s Stability Programme Update for 2022 has found that the economic effect of the war in Ukraine is “expected to slow, rather than derail the economic recovery” as it predicts that elevated levels of energy and commodity prices will feed through to higher inflation levels, which are expected to average 6.25 per cent for the year and peak at 6.75 per cent in the second quarter of the year. However, the labour market has shown “remarkable recovery” from 2021, with the number of people in employment now at its highest ever. The average unemployment rate for the year is now expected to average 6.25 per cent, closing the year at just over 5.5 per cent.

Modified domestic demand has been revised down from Budget 2022 forecasts and is now projected to grow by 4.25 per cent in 2022 and 4 per cent in 2023. With a general government deficit of €8 billion recorded last year, a further €2 billion of deficit is

expected for 2022, -0.8 per cent of GNI*. A modest surplus is expected in 2023 as a reflection of an unwinding of Covid-related expenditure. Debt-toGNI* ratio is projected to fall to 96.5 per cent this year and 90 per cent in 2023.

Speaking upon the publication of the figures, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe TD said: “Given the degree of uncertainty at present, the margin of error around these projections is sizeable. As such, we also set out an alternative severe scenario, where the increase in oil and gas prices is larger than assumed; under this scenario inflation would increase by an additional 2 percentage points to an annual average of 8.25 per cent, peaking at 9.25 per cent in the third quarter of this year. This would in turn have negative implications for the domestic economy and the government finances.”

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Ivana Bacik TD: The mission to rebuild Labour Named as the 14th leader of the Labour Party after an unopposed campaign to succeed Alan Kelly TD, Ivana Bacik TD speaks to Odrán Waldron about the challenge facing the party, her victory in the 2021 Dublin Bay South byelection, and her vision of positive politics.

“We’ve certainly been through challenging times,” Bacik says, reflecting on where both she and her party find themselves. “I first joined about 30 years ago and I’ve been around long enough to know that we’ve had a number of ebbs and flows, rises and falls in the fortunes of the party.”

That Bacik finds herself here at all may come as a surprise to both observers and the new Labour leader herself; having served as a Senator from 2007 to 2021, she has been a TD for less than a year, winning in the Dublin Bay South byelection in July 2021 to replace erstwhile Fine Gael TD, Eoghan Murphy, the only election to take place since the outbreak of Covid-19.

Bacik claimed what would have been considered a surprise victory when campaigning had begun; her vote share of 30.2 per cent, in a constituency where the

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party had claimed just 7.9 per cent of the vote in the 2020 general election, showed the progress the party had made in the constituency covering parts of Kimmage, Rathmines, Terenure, and Rathfarnham.

“I am heartened by the response that we got in that byelection,” she says. “Now is the time for us to build and grow our voice, because there’s a need for Labour messages of equality, solidarity, and fairness, the need for the State to step up and invest in public services, more teachers, doctors, and nurses, and indeed in ensuring that people’s basic needs are met and that the effects of the cost of living crisis are addressed and those who are most in need do not suffer as a result.”

While her own election result gives her cause for optimism, the situation she inherits as Labour leader is not so positive.

In the 2020 election, the party recorded alltime lows in first preference vote share (4.4 per cent), seat numbers (six, now seven with the addition of Bacik) and position among the parties (fifth). Following the deposition of Brendan Howlin TD as party leader, Alan Kelly TD ascended to leadership but did not survive to contest an election as leader. Following his resignation, Bacik took up the mantle unopposed but is undaunted by the task before her and believes that a focus on material issues will benefit the party.

“We’ve gained a real understanding into the concerns of our communities across the country,” she says. “There’s nothing like being on doors, canvassing and meeting people daily to ensure that you become fully aware of the real extent to which people are feeling the pinch. We in

issues eolas

“What I said was we wouldn’t contemplate going into government unless we had a critical mass of TDs and senators to be able to ensure that we could deliver on our policy priorities.”

Labour Party leader, Ivana Bacik TD Labour put down a cost-of-living motion in January before the war [in Ukraine] hit because we were already seeing people squeezed.”

In focusing on the issues affecting people in their day-to-day lives, Bacik sees an opportunity to both spread her message of positivity in politics and to rebuild Labour as a standalone party: “One of the key strategies we deployed in the byelection was a positive message, a positive focus and a positive campaign.

That is why I’m in politics; I don’t believe in the toxic, destructive shouty politics that unfortunately all too often characterises Dáil debate.

“What I want to focus on is building Labour as a standalone party and building support for our message and values.

That’s enough of a challenge. I and the party need to build up our strength in numbers locally, and we’re likely to see a local election first in 2024 before we see a general election.”

Much of the early coverage of Bacik’s leadership has centred around a perceived refusal to consider a future coalition with Sinn Féin, the leading party of the left in Ireland both in polling and current seat numbers, but the TD affirms that her comments were misconstrued and that the party needs to build a “critical mass” before considering coalitions or partnerships with any party.

“What I said was we wouldn’t

contemplate going into government unless we had a critical mass of TDs and senators to be able to ensure that we could deliver on our policy priorities,” she says. “I think that’s an approach that most parties would take. As we’ve seen in other general elections or the referenda I’ve been involved in, you know when the momentum is with you and whether you’ll be able to deliver critical mass. It’s too soon to say what that will look like in 2025 or whenever that will be, but there will be opportunities in the meantime to show how Labour support is growing, particularly in the local elections.”

In the past, Labour has strengthened via the subsummation of other left parties, most famously in the case of the merger with the Democratic Left, leading to speculation that such a move with a party such as the Social Democrats could be possible presently, but Bacik dismisses this. “I’m not interested in any mergers or alliances with any other party because I think our key task is to grow our own base to see Labour values being put into effect to see actual change being delivered for social and economic equality,” she says.

“But I do also have a strong record personally of working constructively with colleagues from all parties where we have commonality of policies and I will continue to do that, to work not just with opposition but with government where we can, to deliver change. I accept that the

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ensuring collective bargaining rights for freelancers. “That’s the sort of legislation we need to see and I know now what unions and their members need is legislation that will require organisations to engage in collective bargaining where membership meets a particular level in a workplace,” she says.

“I’m not interested in any mergers or alliances with any other party because I think our key task is to grow our own base to see Labour values being put into effect to see actual change being delivered for social and economic equality.” left has been and remains fragmented, but that’s always been the case and what we need to do is grow sufficient support to get over that fragmentation.”

Again, Bacik says the overcoming of that fragmentation will be achieved through “promoting our own message positively, rather than knocking other parties”. She points to the fact that she introduced what would have been the State’s first Climate Action Bill with legally binding targets in the Seanad in 2007 as evidence of the party’s green-red agenda, before pivoting to other policy positions.

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“We support a property tax because it’s a tax on wealth and it’s one way of redistributing wealth, which is the core message of any left-wing party,” she says.

“That is core to the Labour message and marks us out from other parties. When we say invest in the building of 40,000 homes a year, we are also offering a means of doing so, which is through a fair taxation system that taxes property.”

As the new leader of the political wing of the trade union movement, Bacik points to her history as a labour lawyer and her work with unions such as the NUJ in

“That’s the sort of legislation that has been very effective in growing union strength but also ensuring that minimum rates have been maintained and that workers’ pay and conditions have improved in other European countries where you don’t have that voluntarist model of industrial relations that we have inherited from the British but unfortunately have maintained. It’s about strengthening union rights through legislation, strengthening the union message through delivering change for members, and it’s also about us putting pressure on government to engage in negotiation with unions through the public sector pay talks. In the private sector, we need to see unions growing their membership and union rights strengthened and I think the two go hand in hand.”

Of course, no conversation regarding the fortunes of Labour is complete without reflection on its role in government between 2011 and 2016, but Bacik concludes by saying that it is now time to turn the page from that chapter in the party’s history: “The interesting thing for me is that it’s now six years since Labour left office; in 2016, the country was back from the brink of financial ruin, out of the Troika, in relative prosperity. The people had their verdict, but it is now time for us to move on and I’m always conscious that Fine Gael and Sinn Féin are never asked about their role in voting for the bank guarantee, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party are never asked about bankrupting the country and promoting the bank guarantee.

“We are now in a different space in politics and other parties who brought about the financial ruin or contributed to it by backing a disastrous bank guarantee are not questioned to the same extent as Labour, so we need to move on.”

issues eolas

Largest ever health National Service Plan announced The Government has unveiled its €20 billion National Service Plan for the HSE, the largest ever, as it seeks to battle record waiting lists and ongoing Covid complications while delivering Sláintecare reforms.

Chief among the aims of the National Service Plan will be getting to grips with Ireland’s outsized hospital waiting lists, with it set out within the plan that the hoped-for maximum time a patient will have to wait for an appointment with a hospital consultant will be reduced to 18 months by the end of 2022, and that 98 per cent of adults and children will be waiting less than 12 months for a planned procedure.

In the weeks following the publication of the National Service Plan in early March 2022, figures for public hospital waiting lists were published for the month of February, showing an increase of over 1,000 people and a total of 626,658 people outpatients waiting. In total, 896,600 people were found to be on some form of public hospital waiting list.

As part of this drive, the plan promises an extra 210,000 inpatient and daycare procedures for its duration, along with 297 additional acute beds and an extra

20 critical care beds. Plans to recruit extra staff, totalling between 5,500 and 10,000, are also afoot. In September 2021, there were 130,636 whole-time equivalent staff employed by the HSE; the plan states that the minimum target for year-end 2022 is 137,414. This recruitment is not without its challenges, as HSE CEO Paul Reid states in the plan: “Attracting additional staff to provide care and progress key reforms is a significant challenge. Very often we find ourselves hiring from one part of the organisation in order to staff another part.”

With these reforms happening under the umbrella of Sláintecare and its goal of delivering higher quality care in improved timescales, the plan also contains details of how the Sláintecare goal of delivering healthcare within local communities will be progressed in 2022.

During the year, the HSE and Department of Health will design and

develop the specifications of regional health areas, which include the completion of a “comprehensive implementation plan”. The aim of these regional health areas is “to create an organisational structure that aligns corporate and clinical governance at regional level, within a strong national context, and enables better coordination and improved performance across health and social care services”.

Speaking upon the publication of the plan, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly TD said that the plan “supports health objectives set out in the Programme for Government, bringing us closer to universal healthcare” and stated: “This National Service Plan for 2022 will improve outcomes for people who need to engage with our public health service, continue to see capacity increased, build on the reforms and improve timely access.”

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cover story

A leader in road safety The Government launched its new Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030 in December 2021. Sam Waide, CEO of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) discusses his organisation’s coordination of what is the initial step towards achieving the elimination of all road fatalities and serious injuries in Ireland by 2050.

“Ireland does not simply want to be a follower among EU member states; it wants to be a leader in road safety,” asserts the RSA’s CEO. When Waide took up his post in September 2020, the development of the Government’s new Road Safety Strategy was a priority task. Despite the obvious challenges, the new CEO seized the opportunity to lead and coordinate with other agencies, putting his own stamp on the new strategy.

“It is a 10-year strategy which runs up to 2030 and at its heart is Vision Zero, providing for a 50 per cent reduction in fatalities and serious injuries by 2030. It has been a challenge for each of our

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delivery partners to develop that strategy, particularly in the middle of a pandemic.

However, we achieved that and launched the strategy in December 2021 with Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan TD and Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton TD,” he explains.

It is the fifth successive Road Safety Strategy (RSS) published in Ireland since 1998. Over the lifetime of previous road safety strategies, significant progress has been made. Indeed, fatalities on Irish roads have reduced by 70 per cent from 460 in 1998 to 137 in 2021, the lowest number of recorded deaths since records began in 1959.

“To me, 137 fatalities are still 137 too

many,” he asserts, adding: “I sincerely and professionally believe that reducing that number of fatalities to zero is possible, but it is only possible with a number of partnerships based and collective actions, not just by organisation and agencies, but by communities and individuals.”

Development During the development of the new Road Safety Strategy, in line with international best practice, the RSA engaged with delivery partners, including government departments, An Garda Síochána, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, the National Transport Authority, Medical

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Bureau for Road Safety, the HSE, and local authorities. Likewise, through a public consultation process, in which over 2,000 submissions were received, the Irish public helped determine the trajectory for road safety in the coming decade.

Through this process, the RSA identified three themes which are now at the heart of the strategy.

“Firstly, each agency consistently indicated that we need to share more data to better inform actions which we will implement,” the CEO explains.

“Secondly, there was a recognition that while legislation has changed throughout the history of road safety in Ireland, there are significant legislative changes still required to achieve better outcomes.

Thirdly, given that a 50 per cent transformation is a significant challenge in any context, a 50 per cent reduction in fatalities and serious injuries will require additional investment and funding.

“Thankfully, over the first phase of the strategy, to 2024, government has committed to a projected €3.8 billion investment. That may sound like a large figure, but on reflection, collisions which result in fatalities and serious injuries cost Irish society the equivalent of €1 million per day,” he emphasises.

Safe System approach Overall, the new Road Safety Strategy 2021 to 2030 is spearheaded by the Safe System approach. Building upon international best practice in road safety, the Safe System approach is globally endorsed by the World Health Organisation. Safe System reframes road safety by placing a shared focus on prevention of fatalities and serious injuries rather than simply collision reduction.

“The Safe System approach is internationally renowned and recognised as best practice for road safety. Other EU member states have adopted the Safe System approach and, internationally, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation have endorsed it. All actions contained in the strategy are framed by this approach.

We will continue to benchmark against international exemplars so that Ireland can keep pace with these positive

“Ireland does not simply want to be a follower among EU member states; it wants to be a leader in road safety.”

Sam Waide, CEO of the Road Safety Authority (RSA)

developments and ultimately take a lead in some of these initiatives,” Waide outlines.

Technology and engineering Within the new strategy, seven Safe System priority intervention areas have been adopted. One of these priority intervention areas is safe vehicles.

“The world has moved on significantly in terms of utilising technology and engineering and, as such, vehicles have become more sophisticated,” Waide remarks.

“We are moving towards a decade in which vehicles will have enhanced functionality to assist drivers. For instance, Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) is a technology which has been mandated for all new cars from July 2022. By 2024, all cars sold within EU member states and the UK will be required to have an ISA feature.”

In the commercial space, manufacturers of lorries and vans are embedding new design and technologies into their vehicles.

“One practical example involves drivers of HGV vehicles, such as lorries, which can struggle to be visually aware of cyclists. As such, new lorries will incorporate windows in the lower section of their doors, enhancing visibility of vulnerable road users, including cyclists and pedestrians, for drivers.

“Onboard and offboard camera technology is also be deployed on buses. Again, this is not necessarily new, but it has proven to be effective in terms of road safety. A recent pilot undertaken by a bus operator in London with offboard cameras applications over a 12month period demonstrated a reduction in collisions. That is something that is beneficial for vulnerable road users as well as bus operators and their employees,” the CEO adds.

“This is an example of how pathfinder projects can be targeted, tested, trialled, and embedded within the new strategy to enhance road safety for everyone.”

Phase 1 With a primary aim of reducing the number of fatalities and serious injuries

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safety rating indicator for national road infrastructure; •

eliminating the incidence of unaccompanied learner permit drivers;

•

prioritising lifesaving technologies associated with General Safety Regulation (GSR); and

•

conducting a review of road traffic policy and legislation to prioritise safe walking and cycling.

30km/h

“Ireland must keep pace and align with other jurisdictions across the EU and beyond which alongside proactive education programmes, continue to ensure that there is adequate consequence for inappropriate behaviour on our roads.” on Irish roads by 50 per cent over the next 10 years, the strategy for 2021 to 2030 will be delivered in three phases of:

the introduction of a 30km/h default speed limit in urban areas; •

expanding speed management measures;

•

reviewing the operation of the mobile safety camera system;

•

exploring the potential of an online portal for road users to upload footage of road traffic offences;

1. Phase 1: 2021-2024; 2. Phase 2: 2025-2027; and 3. Phase 3: 2028-2030.

Published in tandem with the 10-year strategy document, the Phase 1 Action Plan includes 50 High Impact actions aimed at directly reducing fatalities and serious injuries on Irish roads by 15 per cent and 10 per cent, and ultimately by 50 per cent.

•

reviewing the penalties for serious road traffic offences;

•

legislating for increased sanctions for polydrug and drug and alcohol use while driving;

•

constructing 1,000km of segregated walking and cycling facilities between 2021 and 2025;

•

developing and implementing a

These actions include: •

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establishing a working group to examine and review the framework for the setting of speed limits, including specific consideration of

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While not pre-empting the outcome of the working group on speed limits, which will consider amongst other things the implementation of a mandatory 30km/h speed limit in urban areas, Waide emphasises that Ireland is a signatory of the February 2020 Stockholm Declaration agreed at the Third Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety.

The Stockholm Declaration reiterated the commitment of its signatories to achieving global goals by 2030. On road safety, it resolved to “focus on speed management, including the strengthening of law enforcement to prevent speeding and mandate a maximum road travel speed of 30 km/h in areas where vulnerable road users and vehicles mix in a frequent and planned manner”.

“We know that the majority of serious injuries among vulnerable road users on Irish roads occur in urban areas. The 30km/h default speed limit is a specific action that will help achieve a 50 per cent reduction of serious injuries. As such, one action contained within the strategy is a review of speed limits, including the adoption of 30km/h,” Waide highlights.

On the other hand, the CEO acknowledges that the majority of fatalities on Irish roads occur in speed zones of 80km/h or above. “There are several actions aimed at addressing the challenge of speed on our roads. These include average speed cameras on our roads network, public education in regard to inappropriate and excessive speeding, and an online portal on which members of the public can share dashcam footage. While this may sound

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pioneering, it is already happening across the world. Indeed, An Garda Síochána already requests dashcam footage of particular collisions. That is important because road users can help identify poor behaviour. Reducing speeding and poor behaviour is a collective effort.”

Cross-government governance Keen to deliver a transparent reporting mechanism which enables the public and others to scrutinise the progression of strategic actions, the RSA has created a new Road Safety Partnership which incorporates all the delivery agencies.

These span across several government departments, including the Department of Transport, the Department of Justice, the Department of Health, and the Department of Education.

“We now have a governance model whereby the Partnership Board subsequently reports to the Ministerial Committee on Road Safety which is cochaired by Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton TD and Minister for Justice Helen McEntee TD,” Waide explains.

Given that the strategy is characterised by three phases, this is intended to enable the RSA to reflect and, if necessary, recalibrate at the end of Phase 1 in the absence of timely progress or if new and more innovative interventions transpire that could more rapidly achieve Vision Zero objectives.

Public perception Addressing public perception and the consequences for law-breaking on our roads, the RSA CEO highlights a recent survey conducted by his organisation which illustrated that 70 per cent of respondents were supportive of enhanced sanctions as a consequence of killer behaviours such as speeding, using a mobile phone while driving, and drink or drug driving.

“The public perception is very clear and that is encouraging. It indicates the progress that we have made in ensuring that road safety is incorporated into the wider concept of public safety. It is the responsibility of government and organisations to respond to that public expectations around road safety and act to meet them.

“Ireland must keep pace and align with other jurisdictions across the EU and beyond which alongside proactive education programmes, continue to ensure that there is adequate consequence for inappropriate behaviour on our roads”.

Public perception became particularly pertinent during the pandemic, he observes, with a marked increase in vulnerable road users, such as walkers and cyclists, using the roads.

However, the RSA Chief is concerned that on one hand there is an appetite for stronger consequences, while at the same time, the prevalence of poor behaviour endures. “In 2022, we are observing trends which align with preCovid figures, including drink and drug driving, and speeding in particular,” he says.

“Although a large majority of Irish people continue to use our roads in a safe and law-abiding manner, persistent poor behaviour is a reality. As such, there must be consequences for these people.”

Determination Summarising, the RSA CEO is determined to ensure that Ireland’s new road safety ambitions is realised. “I am confident that with the necessary data sharing, the legislation required, and adequate funding both for segregated infrastructure and innovation, the 50 per cent reduction by 2030 can and will be achieved.

“For Ireland to achieve Vision Zero road safety targets, by 2024, 2030, and 2050, we all need to consume the message, recalibrate our thinking, develop timely legislation and ultimately deliver safer road use for all,” Waide concludes.

Profile: Sam Waide Sam is the Chief Executive and Accounting Officer of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) in Ireland. As part of the Vision Zero 2050 challenge to have zero fatalities

“Public sector agencies,” Waide insists, “must lead by example not just on just road safety outcomes but wider sustainable travel challenges.” Areas he identifies include spatial planning of industrial and housing developments, mobility-based infrastructure which protects vulnerable road users, enhancing procurement specifications of fleet with road safety driver assistance and technology enabled functional features through the tendering processes, “in addition to bidders being scored against specific criteria for road safety, similar to social value, as part of good practice, public procurement”.

on our roads, Sam is leading on the delivery of the Government’s Road Safety Strategy 2021-2030, working in partnership with key agencies to achieve Programme for Government outcomes of 50 per cent reduction in serious injuries and fatalities by 2030.

Previously, Waide held the position of Executive Director of Operations and Board Member of the Business Services Organisation within the North’s Health and Social Care Service. Before that, his career spanned the private and public sectors in the UK and Ireland where he has held roles with BMW Group, PWC Consulting, Publicis Sapient Global Markets, and BAE Systems UK. Waide is a Chartered Director, qualified procurement professional and holds a Bachelor of Technology degree, in addition to a master’s degree in engineering and business management.

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Developing practical anticipatory innovation governance Piret Tõnurist, Project Manager for systems thinking and anticipatory innovation governance at the OECD speaks to eolas about anticipatory innovation guidance and the OECD’s work with the Irish Government to implement this guidance.

Tõnurist begins by outlining the work that she and her staff undertake as part of the OECD and how anticipatory innovation governance works: “We look at four different purposes and goals: one of those is of course to meet those goals without emissions, we want a clean transition to prevent climate change, so we have mission-oriented innovation in place. Innovation is actually serving the purpose of those results and outcomes.

“Secondly, we are of course governors of public money. We have to do our best

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with money that is entrusted to us, so we need to continuously innovate and enhance our system by investing in enhancement-oriented innovation.

“We also need to adapt to changing circumstances such as environmental change and citizens’ needs. We need adaptive innovation. Of course, during the Covid period this has been absolutely crucial in terms of surviving the pandemic, a rapidly developing situation where you continuously need to innovate based on new needs and new situations.

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“Last, but not least, you need to have anticipatory innovation. Governments have to, by design, look at the future and the see the risks and transformational opportunities upcoming and seize them and also counter negative potential scenarios before they become a reality.

Essentially, these are the core goals of a government and innovation is there to contribute to those goals. You have to have a systematic portfolio to work across these different goals and different types of innovation.”

The project manager admits that anticipatory innovation is a difficult topic to uphold in both the public and private sectors, due to day-to-day business and current needs tending to override innovation and planning. However, she warns that the world must develop a future-oriented perspective, moving from reactive governments dealing in “end-ofpipe solutions, wait-and-see positions”, to a model of proactive government that looks to achieve and shape the future.

“Anticipation is an act that is really simple,” she says. “It is essentially using futures and foresight perspectives and different scenarios to create knowledge about what is upcoming, potentially upcoming, plausible, and possible. Not only that, but also taking a decision based on that. Anticipation means deciding to do something based on the future perspective. For example, we can have forecasts about how rainy it will be in Dublin tomorrow, but anticipation is about deciding whether or not you take an umbrella with you to work.”

Tõnurist reasons that to make this happen governance that does this work is needed, to not only concentrate on the status quo but future challenges that will not only benefit the public sector, but Ireland as a whole.

“This very closely links to strategic foresight, which is a collective intelligence approach that looks at different possible futures but is also a structured participatory inclusive and impactful process when applied, based on the correct methods looking at medium- to long-term futures,” she expands. Using the large foresight exercises held in Japan as a positive example of how to generate expert knowledge of the future and generate decisions for governments to take, she

says: “If we had looked at the field of social welfare or healthcare five or seven years in advance, the right stress test exercise would have been whether or not policies upheld in a situation of a pandemic.”

The OECD published an overview of strategic foresight exercises and insights, but Tõnurist says that what tends to happen is governments engaging with the insights but not applying them practically. She points to risk assessment frameworks such as that of Sweden, where the risks were described but the framework has never been implemented in terms of stress testing policies, which meant that preparedness for foreseen futures such as Covid-19 were never implemented, meaning policy structures were not resilient to those risks. Finland is mentioned as a good example of applying strategic foresight, with its model said to have “various aspects and roles of different government bodies on how strategic foresight can be applied”.

Turning to Ireland as her conclusion, Tõnurist explains the OECD’s work with the Irish Government, due to run from autumn 2021 to spring 2023: “What we found was a limited foresight experience, timescale issues and very practical issues in policy design in using innovation in the policy process. The key to closing that gap is to give license to your civil servants and to authorise an environment in terms of pursuing anticipation in practice as well.”

Alongside work to build an anticipatory governance model in Finland and a study of the future of the Slovenian public

sector, Tõnurist says that the OECD is examining issues such as how to ensure that this work carries across the differing policy cycles democratic societies experience upon the election of new governments. She poses some key questions for anticipatory government in the public sector more broadly from lessons learnt elsewhere: “We have to look at different elements of the system and how we create the future in terms of citizens and participation, how we allocate budgets and resources, for example, are they only based on costbenefit analysis, or do we also consider other scenarios in terms of input? Is experimentation allowed in your organisation to grasp those transformative changes? What kind of individual skills and capacities are you building up in your public service so different teams can uptake this work?”

Concluding, she lays out the OECD’s plans for collaboration with Ireland: “We have looked and developed an understanding of how strategic foresight works in Ireland. We talked to many different partners and encountered a lot of enthusiasm around this topic.

“From the autumn 2021 onwards until spring 2023 we’re going to look at two different things: the policy development framework, developing an anticipatory toolkit; and developing an action plan on how to integrate strategic foresight within the public service and a full curriculum for all levels of government about what kind of skills are needed for Irish governments to take up this work in practice.”

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From recovery to growth New CEO of InterTradeIreland, Margaret Hearty, outlines her ambition to support more firms across the island back to growth mode and embrace new opportunities as the pandemic loosens its grip.

At the end of 2021, InterTradeIreland’s latest Business Monitor survey revealed that the number of firms trading crossborder in Ireland reporting to be stable (44 per cent) or in growth mode (41 per cent), had essentially returned to prepandemic levels.

The encouraging figures come as no surprise to the recently installed CEO of the cross-border trade body, following a busy few years of delivering their own programmes and signposting businesses, disrupted by the pandemic, to the relevant supports.

Hearty believes that the number of organisations either approaching or already in growth mode is an indicator that her organisation is delivering the right supports and advice, but admits

that it is also a sign of the resilience of businesses in both jurisdictions.

In the first half of 2021, InterTradeIreland assisted over 2,500 companies, with demand for the business body’s supports driven by small firms seeking to help innovate and grow as they emerged from the pandemic and the end of the Brexit transition period.

Despite the disruptive impact of the pandemic, cross-border trade on the island has now reached an all-time high of €7.7 billion, which represents a huge opportunity for businesses. However, Hearty believes that the organisation has a critical role in further supporting SMEs to seize a vast array of emerging opportunities.

Although in the CEO post for just over a year, Hearty has worked in various roles across the cross-border body, set up as part of the Good Friday Agreement, since its inception.

Based in Newry, InterTradeIreland has been helping small businesses in Ireland and Northern Ireland explore new crossborder markets, develop new products, processes and services, and become investor-ready for over two decades.

To date, the organisation has supported more than 48,000 small businesses to identify and develop trade and innovation opportunities, creating an estimated 18,000 new jobs and generating some €1.3 billion in business development value.

Hearty believes her background of business development and customerfacing roles in the private sector, coupled with her extensive experience of working with entrepreneurs, small and medium

sized enterprises, and start-up businesses within InterTradeIreland, has given her a great “grounding” for her current role.

Discussing her extensive experience in designing innovative solutions and supports for business, and her passion for helping and supporting business to grow and develop, Hearty says: “Our customer is the small business on the island and our remit is helping to support those businesses to trade on an all-island basis. SMEs are the lifeblood of our economy and InterTradeIreland has a key role to play in helping businesses as they navigate these uncertain times.

“The organisation has a wide remit; from helping SMEs to identify and source new business opportunities in the crossborder market and guiding them through the new trading requirements, to assisting firms to collaborate with crossborder partners to innovate and become more competitive and increase their chance of investment.”

The CEO explains that InterTradeIreland’s approach of listening to organisations to develop and deliver services is supported by constant monitoring of outcomes for businesses, enabling flexibility in how they support businesses to continue to export and grow. Pointing to the example of the Acumen programme, a support aimed at enhancing the capacity and capability of SMEs to take the first formal steps onto the export ladder and based on evidence that exporting businesses have proven to be more innovative, productive, and resilient, Hearty highlights that the average return for a £15,000 grant is estimated to be in the region of £250,000 per company.

One of InterTradeIreland’s main objectives is to increase economic cooperation across the island of Ireland by facilitating and encouraging mutually beneficial cross-border relationships. It is at the core of everything it does as an organisation, from its cross-border cluster initiative Synergy to its Innovation Boost (formerly known as Fusion) programme, which links companies in one jurisdiction with ideas for new product development with academic institutions in the other.

“Everything we do is about sharing knowledge, best practice, and information across the island. Our Funding for Growth research which looked at business angel activity led to the establishment of the Halo Business

“With Brexit and then the pandemic, as a trade body, our role was to provide facts and information to businesses.”

Angel Network as an all-island umbrella group,” says Hearty. “We also assist with wider all-island or cross-border cooperation, for example, by supporting academics and businesses to partner across the island to access Horizon funding.”

Brexit Pre-dating the disruptive impact of the pandemic, InterTradeIreland’s important role in supporting organisations to trade cross-border has been critical to companies trying to navigate the complexities of Brexit. Recognising the very different environment for businesses

that would occur as a result of the Brexit referendum, Hearty explains that InterTradeIreland has played a critical role in helping businesses navigate uncertainty.

“Since 2016, uncertainty, to a certain degree, has become the new norm,” she says. “With Brexit and then the pandemic, as a trade body, our role was to provide facts and information to businesses. It is what we have done for the past four years and something we continue to do.”

In 2016, InterTradeIreland set up its dedicated Brexit Advisory Service,

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“ Many businesses that trade cross-border have complex supply chains which extend beyond the island into Great Britain and Europe and so, we have installed an agility into our supports over the past 12 months.”

providing essential post-Brexit information for cross-border SMEs and offering a Brexit Voucher support, providing up to €2,250 towards professional advice to help businesses identify their Brexit exposure and to plan.

The CEO explains that the value and success of the programme has been such that InterTradeIreland is currently transitioning it into a new Trade Information Service.

Explaining the necessity of continuing support, Hearty says: “A lot of uncertainty remains around the Northern Ireland Protocol, which has allowed for the free movement of goods across the island, but omits services, which is an important component of cross-border trade.

“We continue to support businesses by giving them factual information and by helping them identify where the potential risks are. Many businesses that trade cross-border have complex supply chains which extend beyond the island into Great Britain and Europe and so, we have installed an agility into our supports over the past 12 months, ensuring that we are constantly adapting and responding to any new changes in the environment and the needs of businesses.”

Corporate plan The CEO explains that agility will be required as the organisation looks to outline its forward-looking framework for the coming years. 2022 is the last year of InterTradeIreland’s current corporate plan and the organisation is in the process of developing a new strategy, reflecting the priorities of both

governments and the sponsoring departments of the Department for the Economy (DfE) in the North and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) in the South.

Due to be published next year, Hearty sets out that as well as seeking to address the short-term challenges facing businesses, the corporate plan will have a focus on the low-carbon and green agendas, a priority for government in both jurisdictions.

However, she stresses that InterTradeIreland is already engaged in encouraging companies across the island to deliver low-carbon solutions on a cross border basis. At the end of 2021, InterTradeIreland’s Seedcorn Investor Readiness Competition, the largest investor readiness competition aimed at new-start and early-stage companies in any sector across the island, now in its 19th year, launched a new Low Carbon award, recognising start-ups innovating within the low carbon and green sector.

Explaining the prioritisation of sustainability-focused development of new products and services in InterTradeIreland’s innovation supports, Hearty explains that supporting best practice on an all-island basis, in terms of what businesses can do to become more sustainable, is a basis for the organisation’s Knowledge Transfer programme.

“There are new opportunities for businesses to be innovative and creative in these areas. As areas identified as possessing large growth potential, InterTradeIreland has a role in signposting businesses to these opportunities. Additionally, we know that

grasping the opportunity of megatrends is more difficult for micro-businesses who are time poor, and so we are working to bring that knowledge to those smaller businesses and helping them stay ahead of the curve.”

Hearty believes that in developing responses to the pandemic, InterTradeIreland has adopted learnings that will help them support businesses for challenges of the future. Specifically addressing the need for businesses to embrace the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution, Hearty highlights the success of InterTradeIreland’s EMerge programme, established to help small businesses improve their online presence and which has supported over 1,000 companies across the island. The programme provides up to €2,800 of fully funded consultancy support to help businesses develop online sales and ecommerce solutions.

Delivered in response to Covid-19, the programme is now being mainstreamed to continue supporting SMEs to develop their e-commerce and online knowledge and encourage them to think more strategically about their cross-border sales.

“Initially set up as a response to Covid19, the programme is now seeing a strong response from firms who are moving into the recovery phase and want to capture consumer’s attention online,” she explains.

Research suggests that cross-border trade in Ireland has the potential to grow significantly in coming years and InterTradeIreland is about to publish research identifying growth sectors, enabling InterTradeIreland to direct

“As areas identified as possessing large growth potential, InterTradeIreland has a role in signposting businesses to these opportunities.” support to companies to take advantage of those trends. Hearty believes that embracing emerging trends could enable an unprecedented increase in future levels of cross-border trade.

One such example is the Belfast/Dublin Fintech Corridor, a cross-border strategic partnership which InterTradeIreland has supported to help boost economic growth and co-operation.

“Cross-border trade has been growing year on year over the past two decades, but we have seen a very significant doubling of growth from 2016 onwards.

For small businesses, cross-border trade and export is a natural first-time export market but is also a really effective firsttime export market because we know that three quarters of firms that export off island took their first step into exporting in the cross-border market,” explains Hearty.

“It is critically important that in the global context of trade, be that Brexit or Covid and where supply chain volatility is being highlighted, that small businesses here in

Ireland embrace the opportunity to bridge those supply chain gaps.”

Turning to her vision for the future, Hearty believes that the surface of what is possible has only been scratched in relation to increased trade and economic co-operation as a whole.

“If you look at the priorities and the challenges that both governments have in their respective jurisdictions, it makes

sense to co-operate and collaborate where economically viable. In addressing the challenges of adopting a low-carbon economy in both jurisdictions and supporting businesses to take advantage of the growth in cross-border trade, I believe InterTradeIreland can play a critical role as a customer-centred organisation, in connecting those SMEs to opportunities on an all-island basis.

“That potential collaboration can enable off-island growth opportunities as well.

We are currently supporting companies to innovate and bring their skillsets together to develop new products with global potential.

“The future for InterTradeIreland lies in helping address the challenges and policy priorities of both jurisdictions, sharing knowledge and best practice and enabling both parts of the island to flourish in the new world that we are evolving into.”

Margaret Hearty is Chief Executive Officer of InterTradeIreland and acts as the organisation’s Accounting Officer. She has worked with the organisation since its inception in a number of key roles and has over 20 years’ experience working with entrepreneurs, small and medium sized enterprises and start-up businesses. Margaret is a business and marketing graduate and has an MBA.

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OECD/G20 BEPS update A March 2022 Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) publication examines the OECD/G20 BEPS project, Corporation Tax revenue, and the potential impact on the Irish economy.

Annually, the OECD estimates corporation tax losses range from $100 billion to $240 billion, or the equivalent of between 4 and 10 per cent of international corporation tax revenue.

An upsurge in digital services, allied to the tax avoidance practices of multinational companies combined to provoke the OECD into limiting international tax competition and protect tax bases. As such, the OECD BEPS project is the most significant attempt to change the international tax landscape in a century.

Incorporating a dual strategy for transforming the international corporation tax landscape, Pillar One aims to amend profit allocation rules, while Pillar Two seeks to implement a global minimum level of corporation tax of 15 per cent within each jurisdiction that multinational companies operate by 2023.

The global minimum corporation tax rate

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applies to multinationals with revenue above €750 million. As a result, it is anticipated that countries will increase annual corporation tax revenues by $150 billion.

Timetable As per Table 1, the OECD BEPS process is set to be implemented from the start of 2023. However, the PBO highlights that, “the timetable is very ambitious for such a significant change to international taxation,” and that comparable changes have required an average of two years for countries to implement.

MLC Meanwhile, Pillar One will be agreed via a multilateral convention (MLC) expected to be signed in summer 2022. The MLC is intended to facilitate the swift and

coherent implementation of Pillar One by OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework countries, ensuring that the countries do not require an existing tax treaty between them. Overall, the MLC will: outline rules for profit allocation; eliminate double taxation; outline the mechanism for dispute prevention and resolution; and require member jurisdictions to remove digital services taxes, committing not to introduce measures in the future.

EU Alongside the other EU member states (excluding Cyprus), Ireland has signed up to the OECD BEPS Statement, Two-Pillar Solution to Address the Tax Challenges Arising from the Digitalisation of the Economy. In 2021, a total of 141 OECD member jurisdictions (94 per cent of global GDP) of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS agreed to the

issues eolas statement, as well as a detailed implementation strategy.

Now, the European Commission is planning to adopt a directive that will implement Pillar Two within the EU. Mirroring the OECD BEPS agreement, the directive will outline how Pillar Two would be implemented in the EU, including a uniform set of rules on the calculation of the effective corporation tax rate across member states.

the OECD BEPS project to have “a very significant impact, including a detrimental impact”.

external shock (similar to the Covid-19 pandemic) could threaten Ireland’s public finances and debt sustainability.

In recent decades, Ireland’s economic model has been contingent on competitive tax policy (a relatively low rate of 12.5 per cent), aimed at attracting FDI. As such, corporation tax receipts increased from €3.9 billion in 2009 to over €15 billion in 2021 (22 per cent of exchequer tax receipts).

Therefore, it is difficult to predict the impact that OECD BEPS will have on future corporation tax revenue. Indeed, it is possible that Pillar Two could have a positive effect on corporation tax revenue in Ireland. Any forecast is dependent on “multiple dynamic impacts on a diverse range of sectors” simultaneously in domestic, European, and global contexts.

However, the directive will diverge from OECD BEPS in that the scope of its corporation tax rules will apply to domestic companies, while OECD BEPS will apply to foreign subsidiaries of multinationals. This will prevent discrimination between domestic and multinational groups to uphold the EU’s fundamental freedoms.

Shielding Ireland from fiscal shocks and poor planning, which have led to consistent spending overruns and increased permanent spending, unanticipated growth in corporation tax receipts have enabled increased expenditure, particularly in healthcare, without resorting to increased borrowing, taxation or spending cuts elsewhere.

Alongside debate in the European Parliament and consultation with the European Economic and Social Committee, implementation of the proposed directive hinges on unanimous agreement between all member states in the EU council.

Regardless, corporation tax is an unreliable source of funding for permanent expenditure. Owing to its volatility, narrow base, and vulnerability to shock, overreliance on this revenue stream has been consistently criticised by domestic fiscal institutions, including the Central Bank if Ireland and the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council.

Ireland In October 2021, the Irish Government signed up to the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project. In the PBO’s assessment, there is potential for

For instance, one potential scenario identified by the Central Bank considers that reduced corporate tax revenue between 2021 and 2025 (as a result of OECD BEPS, for example), alongside an

Implementation of OECD BEPS is likely to radically alter the investment strategies and tax planning of multinationals. Globally, reduced tax competitiveness may result in a relegation of corporate tax factors in decision-making, versus other factors of economic competitiveness, including human capital and infrastructure. This could expose weaknesses, including capital infrastructure gaps, in Ireland.

That being said, even prior to Brexit, Ireland was regarded as a gateway to the European market for US multinationals.

Factors which may mitigate against a detrimental impact of an increase in the effective rate to 15 per cent include Ireland’s status as a common law, English-speaking country with eurozone and EU membership.

Implementation of the OECD BEPS two-pillar solution, 2023 Timeline

Pillar One: Profit allocation

December 2021

‘Early 2022’

•

Pillar Two: Global minimum corporate tax rate •

Model rules to define scope and mechanics for the Global Anti-Base Erosion (GloBE) rules

•

Model treaty provision to give effect to the subject to tax rule (STTR).

•

Multilateral instrument (MLI) for implementation of the STTR in relevant bilateral treaties

•

Implementation framework to facilitate coordinated implementation of the GloBE rules

Text of a multilateral Convention (MLC) and Explanatory Statement to implement Amount A of Pillar One.

‘Mid-2022’

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Model rules for domestic legislation necessary for the implementation of Pillar One

•

High-level signing ceremony for the multilateral Convention

‘End 2022’

•

Finalisation of work on Amount B for Pillar One

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roundtable discussion

Hydrogen: Decarbonising Ireland’s economy SSE hosted a round table discussion with key stakeholders discussing the role of green and low-carbon hydrogen in Ireland’s decarbonisation ambitions.

What are the benefits of green hydrogen production?

sectors, but it needs cross-sector collaboration to build a business case.

Oonagh O’Grady

The potential for hydrogen is only matched by the potential for renewables.

To get our entire energy system to zero carbon, we need 20-40GW of wind. Our system will use 5-6GW of energy at any one time for electricity. Ireland has the potential to export 2 per cent of global hydrogen need. The problem for hydrogen is not on the production side, it is the demand side, and the potential has to be matched by industry taking on the use case for hydrogen for their applications, and where it should fit,

At the core of the opportunity for Ireland is our wind and renewable ambitions. We have a stated target from government of 5GW of offshore wind, but we also have the Programme for Government noting the further opportunities of floating wind on the west coast. That creates the opportunity to export power but will require the conversion of some of that power for storage, which hydrogen offers. Hydrogen is a solution for multiple

James Carton

Round table discussion hosted by

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where it works and where the least amount of supports from government should be pushed through.

Caoimhe Donnelly The focus for decarbonising transport is on electrification and for the public transport system this is being delivered through DART Plus for 70 per cent of rail journeys and through the NTA BusConnects programme. Battery electric will deliver over 70 per cent of zero emission public transport journeys however, as we grow and develop public transport, increasing frequency and extending 24-hour services there will be an increasing demand for flexible fuel and a complementary zero emission technology for longer journeys. We are looking for solutions that can facilitate the whole of the public transport system and that is where hydrogen comes in.

Testing and understanding is key. For us, working with hydrogen technology has the potential to complement our transition to battery electric.

Ciarán Murphy Hydrogen could be the leading contender to deliver on-demand power generation to help us reach net zero power in the future, and there is significant potential for hydrogen supply in Ireland, but I think it is important that we properly identify all the demand side uses of hydrogen. I have been involved in research which looked at heat demand, future heat technologies and decarbonisation pathways for the heat sector, which highlighted that non-hydrogen technologies are most suitable for low and medium temperature heat use cases and that hydrogen is likely more suited to the transport and power sectors, for example, with, additionally, some industry sector use cases.

Roundtable participants James Carton James Carton is Assistant Professor in Sustainable Energy in Dublin City University where his research focus is energy sustainability and green hydrogen deployment through techno-economic modelling, Power-to-X, and renewable energy storage research. He is founder of Hydrogen Ireland Association, academic advisor to Hydrogen Mobility Ireland and hydrogen expert to the United Nations-ECE. James is Principal Lead of HyLight, a 25-industry partner and government SFI funded project with the Irish Marine Renewable energy institute to investigate the role of hydrogen to support decarbonisation on the island of Ireland.

How can hydrogen be used in the electricity sector?

Caoimhe Donnelly

Oonagh O’Grady

Ciarán Murphy Ciarán Murphy was appointed Codema's policy manager in December 2021. Prior to working for Codema, Ciarán worked for SEAI via a research fellowship collaboration with UCD Energy Institute. As project secretariat for the SEAI National Heat Study, he played a coordination and leadership role on the project, which explored in detail various pathways to net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 in Ireland's heat sector. Prior to that Ciarán spent five years working for ESB Networks. He has a bachelor's in mechanical engineering and a master's in energy systems engineering from UCD.

Additionally, as we build out to take advantage of our natural assets in the form of offshore wind, we are going to require a number of routes to market. We know how much generation from offshore wind our system in Ireland can take but our opportunity is bigger than that when we consider the exportation of electricity and of hydrogen. However, if we are seeking to export, we need to develop low-carbon hydrogen standards.

Oonagh O’Grady

We also believe that hydrogen-powered thermal generation can provide the flexibility to support Ireland’s 80 per cent RES-E ambition and beyond. Some form of financial support will likely be needed given the high costs of establishing a hydrogen infrastructure. Business models need to be agreed which clarify areas such as key risks and obligations, contractual support and liability.

Oonagh O’Grady is Head of Hydrogen Development SSE Thermal, a post she has held since July 2021, having previously served as SSE Thermal’s Head of Business Development, Manager of SSE Airtricity Business Energy Solutions and as Strategic Partnership Lead of Energy markets. Prior to joining SSE, Oonagh was a senior policy analyst at EirGrid between 2012 and 2017.

Oonagh has a BEng civil and environmental engineering degree from University College Cork and an MBA in Business Management from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School.

James Carton I agree that there is huge potential for hydrogen in the electricity sector but electricity generation from hydrogen at

roundtable discussion

Caoimhe Donnelly is Chief Sustainability Officer at CIÉ Group since April 2020, responsible for delivering sustainability strategy across the group. Caoimhe has over 20 years’ experience in senior management roles in competition and regulation, strategy, and sustainable development. She is the Chair of Global Action Plan, Ireland, a not-for-profit organisation driving sustainability initiatives across Ireland and holds a Dip. Company Direction, IoD; an MBA from the University of Cambridge; an MA in economics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles; and a BA International in economics from University College Dublin.

Multiple solutions will be required to decarbonise the electricity sector, including storage. We are still assessing a number of technologies in relation to long-duration storage, but I think hydrogen has a role, acting as a mechanism to increase the duration over which you are able to store electricity by conversion. Alongside decarbonisation, global events have shone a spotlight on volatility in the electricity sector and the importance of security of supply, and this presents an opportunity for hydrogen across multiple sectors.

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roundtable discussion

“It is worth remembering that hydrogen is a premium fuel and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, so in terms of value for money, electrification appears the best solution for domestic heat.” Oonagh O’Grady large scale is probably 10 years away in Ireland. However, there is some low hanging fruit. Data centres, for example, which need large energy back up and are reliant on fossil fuels, present options for pilot schemes or small deployment in the next five years. It is worth noting that a small combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) uses as much hydrogen per hour as what it would take to run 50 cars per year, so it goes back to ensuring we have the hydrogen production to meet these deployments. The challenges are not technology restrictions but ensuring there is an urge from industry, government and policy to push us towards a cleaner way of producing energy.

The EU needs to get to grips with the definition of green hydrogen. They have given us a broad parameter of it, but the reality is that you could produce hydrogen from coal and still probably fall

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in that parameter. Ireland’s hydrogen should be green and very low carbon.

Caoimhe Donnelly Hydrogen can play a role in supporting increased renewable energy generation and enabling energy and transport systems integration. As the biggest fuel importers on the island, we hedge our fuel prices. With a shift to hydrogen, and a conversion to battery electric, there is the potential to obtain greater energy security and move away from the volatility in the fossil fuel market and ensure some security in terms of price and supply. In terms of our demand and the price we would require to make hydrogen viable, a large transition is needed. There is a huge opportunity for Ireland to produce hydrogen for export but if we want to utilise it in the domestic economy, in the transport sector for example, we need to provide opportunities for early stage market development capturing benefits to decarbonise electricity and transport.

Ciarán Murphy There are strong opportunities for research in this area on how to apply the EU’s Energy System Integration Strategy in the most holistic, sensible way for Ireland. In energy, for example, assessing the opportunity for inter-seasonal storage and what the appropriate hydrogen storage medium is are important questions which need answering if the electricity sector is to run sustainably and securely.

How will green hydrogen be used to heat Irish homes and businesses?

Ciarán Murphy Leaning on Codema’s Dublin Region Energy Master Plan, a spatialised analysis of the demand in the Dublin area and pathways to net zero across the Dublin region, one of the strongest pieces of evidence was the enormous potential for district heat to serve over 80 per cent

roundtable discussion

“District heating, heat pumps and potentially biomass for some rural areas are all great solutions to the decarbonisation of heat and so when trying to cultivate the most appropriate demand side uses for hydrogen, it is probably better to focus on bigger opportunities such as transport and power.” Ciarán Murphy of non-industry heat demand. This evidence was matched in the recent SEAI National Heat Study which shows up to 50 per cent of non-industry heat nationwide could be served by district heat. District heating, heat pumps and potentially biomass for some rural areas are all great solutions to the decarbonisation of heat and so when trying to cultivate the most appropriate demand side uses for hydrogen, it is probably better to focus on bigger opportunities such as transport and power.

We do need to start thinking about the important strategic decisions that will need to be made on the gas grid. The recent SEAI National Heat Study looked at decarbonised gas use for homes and the public and commercial sectors and the results showed that this scenario was not compatible with our current carbon budgets to 2030 and had the highest cumulative emissions to 2050.

So, there is a role for the gas grid, but we

need to have a balanced conversation about what that will look like.

James Carton Heat is generally low quality and inexpensive, so using hydrogen to heat millions of homes is inefficient. However, there is a push to put hydrogen into the gas grid. I think it is part of the solution but certainly not all of the solution. I expect the 700,000 or so customers currently on the gas grid to decrease significantly as other heating solutions, such as district heating and heat pumps grow, and by 2040 we could potentially be looking at only around 100,000 customers connected to the gas grid in the cities of Dublin, Limerick and Cork.

For heavy industry and for anything under 300OC electrification is the solution but over and above that, fuel is most beneficial and fuel in the future is going to be biomethane or green hydrogen.

potential for hydrogen lies in the industrial heat processes. The power system has a stick in that we have to decarbonise the system, but I think hydrogen also provides for the decarbonisation of large industries, such as cement. It is worth remembering that hydrogen is a premium fuel and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, so in terms of value for money, electrification appears the best solution for domestic heat.

What role will hydrogen have in decarbonising the transport sector?

Caoimhe Donnelly Hydrogen is a premium fuel and so electrification remains the solution best suited to decarbonising at least 70 per cent of public transport journeys.

Oonagh O’Grady I agree that in relation to heat, the

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“The challenges are not technology restrictions but ensuring there is an urge from industry, government and policy to push us towards a cleaner way of producing energy.” James Carton However, as we seek to drive, develop, and grow the public transport network, hydrogen offers flexibility around longdistance range and frequency. It also offers diversification in our fuel reliance, which is important when you consider the requirements of electrification across our decarbonisation ambitions.

James Carton I think public transport has a leadership role. The public need to get behind the decarbonisation agenda and the visibility offered by utilisation of technologies such as hydrogen through public transport is important in helping with that. Offering flexibility to the transport sector is also important when you consider that a Heavy Good Vehicle (HGV) is weight restricted, in that an extra tonne of weight for batteries is a tonne less of goods that can be transported.

Remember, while deploying hydrogen in relation to transport at scale may not be fully cost-effective now, in the future, when levels of renewable electricity and the potential for hydrogen are much greater and large scale hydrogen storage exists; transport will be a small portion of our energy need. Green hydrogen could effectively fuel all public transport for free.

Caoimhe Donnelly If we are going to stimulate a hydrogen economy, we need to plan ahead and support low carbon infrastructure development in order to meet our 2030 emission targets. We need to put the infrastructure and policies in place to enable investment around large scale hydrogen production in Ireland.

Oonagh O’Grady I think if we look at our individual industries and try to build a business case for hydrogen, it does not work. It is

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a cross-sectoral challenge for a reason.

So, we can talk about timelines for different aspects, but it is actually bringing that cohesively into a hydrogen strategy from government that is going to make this combined business case work.

How can Ireland cultivate a hydrogen value chain?

What are the major challenges?

James Carton Hydrogen did not appear in detail on any government document until 2018, and even then, it was to explain that methane contained both carbon and hydrogen.

Today government are planning a hydrogen strategy; this is a big shift and so it is important that that document is a flexible working document. We can learn lessons from the UK, who, for example, did not talk of export in their initial strategy but are now aiming for it. The Government has been clear that the

roundtable discussion

“Battery electric will deliver over 70 per cent of zero emission public transport journeys however, as we grow and develop public transport, increasing frequency and extending 24-hour services there will be an increasing demand for flexible fuel and a complementary zero emission technology for longer journeys.” Caoimhe Donnelly ambition is green hydrogen and once we have that definition, we must seek to align that with the renewable target to reach the 80 per cent target and above.

There are low hanging fruits, things we can do pre-2025 such as in transport, where needed, or hydrogen technology pilots, so that come 2030, and the likelihood that we are under our ambitious targets, we are ready to get over that hump. The hydrogen strategy is important to setting the direction, encouraging investment, reducing risk for industry, and preparing the development of the new skills and jobs which will be needed.

Caoimhe Donnelly The development of a hydrogen strategy is welcome, and the Government is accelerating its delivery in 2022. In relation to the value chain, government has an important role. For example, the Department of Transport is actively looking to develop hydrogen corridors to

support the development of a hydrogen economy and opting to support the objectives of the EU Directive on alternative fuels infrastructure. That is important because if you consider transport as the first off-taker of hydrogen in the development of a hydrogen economy, there needs to be investment in infrastructure if it is to be commercially viable.

Ciarán Murphy The hydrogen strategy consultation is both welcome and timely. There is a strong urgency to act now for strategic energy system decisions like this and as much policy certainty as possible will help business cases develop for the sector.

Oonagh O’Grady

years, is that we have actions and timeframes for those actions. Crucially, we need business models to support the strategy. Companies like SSE need an understanding of what the business case is for the projects moving forward, if we are to gain that early investment expenditure approval. Again, the UK perspective has demonstrated that public/private discussion, facilitated through expert groups, have enabled the creation of business models that work for government, the consumer and businesses making investments.

However, government alone are not responsible for cultivating a hydrogen value chain. Beyond the business model, industry needs to collaborate if we are to identify and address the cross-sectoral challenges be they safety or public acceptance etc.

We are starting an industry from scratch.

The strategy gives us policy signals but what is really important, and we can learn this from the UK experience in recent

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issues eolas

A shared island: Mental health Despite an increase in awareness and a move towards de-stigmatisation of mental health issues, many people still find it “frustrating, difficult and sometimes even impossible” to access mental health supports on the island of Ireland.

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Additional efforts and resources will be needed to not only address the increased demand for mental health services as a result of the pandemic in Ireland but also to catch up in some areas where services were cut back as a result of lockdowns and restrictions, a report by the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) has found.

shared island being developed by NESC

The state-of-play review on mental health policy and practice, and on current and potential areas of cooperation on the island of Ireland, was developed as part of an overall comprehensive report on the

context is different. For example, in 2018

eolas issues

on request of the Department of the Taoiseach.

Understandably, the report sets out that health services in the two jurisdictions are facing many of the same problems around funding, staffing, and waiting lists.

However, there are also areas where the the North’s official suicide rate was 18.6 per cent per 100,000 population, compared to a 9 per cent rate in the Republic in the same year.

issues eolas

Highlighting that the legacy of ‘the Troubles’ still has a significant impact on mental health in Northern Ireland, with mental health issues being most prevalent in deprived areas and areas affected by the violence, the report states: “The social determinants of health, such as income, education and employment status, play a big part in mental health, and this is particularly pronounced in Northern Ireland as a result of the conflict.”

Both the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive have increased efforts to promote and support mental health services in the last number of years. In 2021, the Republic launched a new policy for mental health, while Northern Ireland’s first mental health strategy funding plan was published earlier in the year.

Over the last decade, the broader ambitions of the development of mental health services have been similar in both jurisdictions, through a move away from institutionalised and hospital-based services. Instead, the shift has been towards community-based services, early intervention, and preventative measures to avoid and alleviate mental health problems. This is despite some fundamental differences between the healthcare systems, with Northern Ireland’s free universal healthcare, compared to the mix of private and public charges services in the Republic.

The report points to evidence of good collaboration in the mental health area between public, community, and voluntary stakeholders on an all-island or north-south basis but says that the potential to build on the knowledge and experience already in existence in these organisations, by providing them with consistent support to enable them to further develop and mainstream successful programmes.

“Despite the existence of some structures of cooperation, the consensus seems to be that a more formalised setting or forum, dedicated to mental health cooperation, would be desirable,” report author Jenny Andersson states.

“Many stakeholders said that it would help to place, and keep, mental health issues on the agenda, and that it could

“The pandemic illustrated the difficulties inherent in having two different public health responses in such close proximity.” be useful in ensuring consistent funding for mental health initiatives.”

Funding In the Republic, mental health services have shown an increase in both funding and service activity over the last decade but there has also been an increase in demand for mental health services.

However, spending on mental health as part of the wider health budget remains comparatively low in both jurisdictions, with a figure of around 6 per cent for the Republic and the same for Northern Ireland. By comparison, in England that figure is 12 per cent.

While the pandemic has pushed the issue of mental health and related services up the policy agenda, evidence of increased demand already exists but the full impact of the Covid crisis on mental health is not expected to be revealed for a number of years. Anxiety of the disease as well as curbs on social interaction, education and prolonged stress have all been identified in a range of issues potentially having a negative impact on mental health.

The pandemic illustrated the difficulties inherent in having two different public health responses in such close proximity.

“During the pandemic, both jurisdictions moved by necessity towards increased provision of online supports. While they are not suitable for every individual and situation, there does seem to be consensus around their many potential benefits, not least in increasing the reach of services to those that might be unable or reluctant to attend in-person services.

The main advantage of online supports in the particular context of north-south cooperation is, of course, that there are no physical borders inherent in these types of interventions,” Andersson says.

In conclusion, the paper outlines a number of topics for further consideration, including: •

possible benefits from enhancing the level and range of settings for crossborder engagement between the two administrations, and in professional and clinical terms, on mental health cooperation;

•

how to ensure consistent funding and subsequent mainstreaming of successful cross-border and all-island projects;

•

the possible role of a Mental Health Champion in the Republic, building on the experience in Northern Ireland;

•

improved and more standardised data collection on mental health, as a tool for comparing policy outcomes, and to help share learning and information;

•

how to build on and use the growth in online supports as a tool in crossborder cooperation; and

•

whether scope exists for more policy cooperation, and, given the public health aspect, whether there is potential for more cooperation around prevention and early intervention.

eolas issues

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Minister Eamon Ryan: ‘The key thing now is delivery’ Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan TD speaks to Odrán Waldron about the coalition government’s progress thus far, the ORESS auction to be held this year, and delivering a just transition.

Two years into the three-party coalition formed by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party that he leads, Ryan feels that the Government is ideally placed to deliver on its promises over the three remaining years of its mandate. “My sense is that we have the right plans in place with Housing for All, the National Development Plan, and the Climate Action Plan and the key thing is now delivery,” he says. “The legislation backing up that plan is very strong so that will direct us, but it’s practical acceleration of key areas in sustainable mobility, heating and buildings, insulation, offshore winds, climate communications itself, land use and ensuring a just transition.”

Key to this delivery, Ryan says, will be the establishment of taskforces within both departments under his leadership that incorporate other departments and agencies. For example, for the development of offshore wind, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications will partner with the Department of Housing and Local Government, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and agencies of the State such as the ports.

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environment and climate report

“We need an all-island approach in our electricity system... the more interconnected we are north-south and east-west the better.”

With the 5GW by 2030 target key to the decarbonisation of the economy, the Green Party leader says that the process will be focused on ensuring delivery on time and getting environmental planning right. The same principles will apply to sustainable mobility, with the Department of Transport leading and bringing in agencies like the National Transport Authority (NTA) and Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII), local authorities, and regional assemblies; these teams will investigate how to accelerate BusConnects in all five cities, and the new Connecting Ireland rural transport system.

As to whether the upcoming shuffle at the top of government, when Micheál Martin TD and Leo Varadkar TD will swap roles as Taoiseach and Tánaiste, will affect the Government’s progress, Ryan says: “I’m confident that all three parties in government have a common agreement that housing, healthcare reform, and climate action are our three priorities.

A major plank of global decarbonisation ambition is nascent planning to transition people from personal, fossil fuel-powered cars to electrified or green public transport but plans of this ilk have suffered setbacks of late in Ireland, with the NTA and TII now admitting that the MetroLink project will be delayed until 2035 at the earliest.

Delays are a whole-of-government problem, Ryan reasons, not a specifically transport related one.

“Across a whole range of different areas of government, there’s a problem that it’s taking us so long to deliver projects we know we want to deliver through the permitting and contracting process,” he says.

Asked if the delays will have an affect on delivery against emissions and decarbonisation targets, Ryan emphasises that such a thought cannot be entertained: “I don’t think we can afford to miss them. In energy, we will meet them because this is the economic strategy for the State. There’s a huge ramping up of ambition on renewables and we have to make sure we have the shipping, cabling, turbines, ports and all infrastructure in place.

“How we change land use is more complex, but those changes will happen because we can move to a better system, and we see the exposure with very high fertiliser prices at the moment. We can’t be trading on an argent green brand if we’re not actually argent green in everything we do.”

Offshore wind Delay has also blighted the rollout of major offshore wind projects in Ireland, delays that could scarcely be allowed due to the 2030 target of 5GW of offshore power, which is hoped to greatly aid the electrification and decarbonisation of various sectors. Having been delayed until 2022, the first offshore renewable electricity support scheme (ORESS) auction has been further delayed and is now set to take place in Q4 2022.

However, Ryan is not worried by the delay, explaining that much of it was due to the lag in progressing the Marine Area Planning Bill, which was finally enacted before year-end 2021. “By the end of this year or early next year, we will have MARA established as the body responsible for the maritime planning,” Ryan says.

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environment and climate report

“We have to reduce our dependency on imported fossil fuels; we have to meet our emissions targets; and we also have the economic opportunity, that renewable power will be the basis of our economic strategy in terms of how we power industry, in time how we export surplus power through interconnection with the rest of Europe to be part of regional rebalancing, and we can also look at ammonia and hydrogen as a way of storing that power.”

In recent times, threats to the grid have emerged in both the stress placed on it by increased consumption, largely blamed on increasing numbers of data centres in Ireland, and by a recent court challenge taken in the North in an attempt to separate EirGrid and SONI, but Ryan’s affirms the Government’s commitment to the integrated single market.

“We need an all-island approach in our electricity system and the transformation to a low-carbon society will see the electrification of so many different areas in transport and heating as well in industrial and commercial use, that the more interconnected we are north-south and east-west the better,” he says. “Discussing this with northern politicians over the years, I have always made the case that we have to have an allisland strategy, but we also have to work with the neighbouring island because the balancing of this renewable future requires that level of interconnection. We have to maintain this level of collaborative approach.

“I would say the same when it comes to data centres. We have to make sure that every sector helps us in this balancing act between variable supply and variable demand and data centres have a potentially beneficial role in that. For example, we’re working on a data centre in Tallaght, where the waste heat from the data centre heats local buildings. Similarly, we’ll need to locate data centres where it’s optimal for the grid so we can manage it without having to build out all the time and similarly, look for the backup generation that some of those centres have to add to our suite of resources to help us balance renewable energy when the wind isn’t blowing.

“The data centre companies understand this now; it can’t be a free for all or an open door for every project wherever people want. It does have to be managed by EirGrid particularly to optimise the network and that can happen. No sector gets an opt out on our climate targets, everybody has to contribute to what is a huge ask.”

“The [carbon tax] increases that are due in May in oil and gas heating, each of them is about €1.40 a month net effect.

The real increase is coming from our overdependence on imported fossil fuels and those fuels have become expensive on the international market.”

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Just transition

environment and climate report

Such grid security will be key to the energy transition, the justness of which has been in question in public lately due to the scheduled annual rise of the carbon tax occurring at a time when oil and gas prices are at all-time highs. Ryan defends the mechanism as one that guarantees a just transition: “One of the advantages of the approach we’re taking is that one-third of additional revenues from the carbon tax go towards protecting those at risk of fuel poverty through social welfare increases.

“Around 55 per cent of it goes towards funding the retrofitting of buildings, which is socially progressive, looking at social housing and houses at risk of fuel poverty and giving them a 100 per cent grant. Then the remaining 15 per cent goes to typically small farmers to support environmental measures. The increases that are due in May in oil and gas heating, each of them is about €1.40 a month net effect. The real increase is coming from our overdependence on imported fossil fuels and those fuels have become expensive on the international market.”

Key to delivering a just transition will be collaboration, a topic to the fore of the first holding of the National Climate Stakeholder Forum, a consultative forum on climate issues led by Ryan’s department. “This is a huge transition we have to make, and we have shown in this country in the past when we’ve had to make changes that a partnership approach works,” Ryan says. “Social partnerships helped us get out of the economic crisis of the late eighties, social partnerships saw us through Covid where everyone rowed in and played their part. It will be the same with the climate transition.

“It was the first of such dialogues, we will be coming back in the summer and again later in the year. It was a very open process, we were focusing on some issues such as accelerating offshore renewables, sustainable renewables, retrofitting, and how we communicate all of this. I think that model of sharing with social partners, environmental NGOs, trade unions, youth councils, does work and so we’re going to double down on it and keep listening.”

Opportunity Crises, as the world has recently experienced with both Covid-19 and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, often present opportunities, and while Ryan admits that the world missed an opportunity due to inaction since climate science became an accepted fact in the late 1980s and early 90s, he is more optimistic that the opportunity of Covid has been grasped.

“When you see the third IPCC report, it can’t be ignored. We’re at such a critical moment where we do have to act at scale and at speed,” he says. “When you’re scaling up retrofitting it does take time, we have to get apprenticeships and workers in place, which we can. It takes time in sustainable mobility to start putting in the bus and cycle lanes that will be part of the solution, but we’re determined.

“Remote working is now a reality; two or three years ago you’d have said that would never happen. It has now and I don’t think we’ll be going back, certainly not to the way it was. We have a biodiversity and pollution crisis as well as an environmental crisis, and I think one of the things that happened during Covid is people did connect to their local environment. In those difficult times when we were restricted to 5km, people did start to appreciate their own local park, river, canal walk, environment.”

On a similar note, he concludes: “People underestimate, when we’ve got clear consensus around the need for change, the ability to do it. Covid is different to climate because it was an immediate pressing threat to everyone’s health; climate is a bigger, wider, longer threat that maybe isn’t every day for people, but our job is to inspire people to address this threat and show them it can be better for us. It won’t work if we just put the shame on people. That language and that framing of it is important as to how we see this challenge and I think Covid tells us in a variety of ways that we can make the leap.”

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Transform to win: Moving from carbon budgets to decarbonisation action environment and climate report

motivates and budgets that are burdens.

Feeling like you have some control in order to meet the budget is a key ingredient to ensuring motivation is maintained, but in general, budgets suffer right at the definition; they are a restriction.

Targets on the other hand, come with action orientation and motivation in the definition. Targets are meant to be achieved or even improved upon.

Stretch targets will drive new thinking and innovation. Indeed, in business just meeting the minimum targets is not the mark of long-term success. We strive in everyday life to hit stretch goals, to innovate with a view to exceeding our expectations.

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Carbon Budget 1, published in October 2021, allows us to generate up to 295 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2eq) of greenhouse gases over the five years from 2021 to 2025 inclusive.

This calls for an annualised reduction in our emissions of approximately 4.8 per cent annually, write Stephen Prendiville, Head of Sustainability, and Anna Farrell, Sustainability Associate, of EY Ireland.

To put that reduction in context, during 2020, we achieved a 3.6 per cent reduction on our prior year emissions, due of course almost entirely to Covid19 lockdowns. As such, Carbon Budget 1, for many, will demand significant changes to their lives.

And yet, 2021 has come and gone, and our emissions look set to be confirmed as having remained at 2019 levels. It 38

means the changes of the next four years will be all the greater just to come within budget.

If this is going to be the narrative of our decarbonisation transformation, then our carbon budgets, which ought to be a very positive tool in our journey, could easily become a handicap.

It’s a fine line between a budget that

Our carbon budgets are effectively our minimum targets for decarbonising our economy. The minimum! Anyone will tell you, when you aim for minimum targets, you will invariably miss them, on the low side. It is why we set ourselves stretch goals. We cannot hope to unlock the opportunities and the value of this journey, in terms of jobs, skills, flows of capital etc., if our entire mindset is pointed towards minimum effort.

We need to be unshackled in our decarbonisation ambition. We need to start taking aggressive and positive actions right now. We need to transform to win.

What we need is a value-led approach and mindset. Value-led sustainability is a shift in mindset that looks at the opportunities presented by sustainability, rather than focusing on challenges. It’s engaging, and potentially investing, with one of your suppliers to decarbonise a product so that it creates opportunity for both. It is win-win focused. It’s creating a new sustainable product that opens you up to a new market and creates new revenue streams. It is looking at your processes and maximising how your waste products can be used differently or even recategorised as new products rather than “waste”. But more than anything, “value led” is action focused.

Soon, the Government will publish the allocation of sectoral carbon budgets.

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Sector representatives are currently, and I imagine will continue, to seek the maximum budgets for their particular groups – such that their groups will have the least burden in terms of decarbonisation. This siloed mindset will not help us. Rather we need cross sectoral collaboration to identify, and cross invest in decarbonisation pathways that help multiple sectors at a time. Taking a value-led approach, we might find that investments in technologies in one sector can have applications and benefits in another.

While debates continue back and forth over sectoral ceilings or the dilemma of energy decarbonisation, or the timing with respect to the strength of the national economy, the world continues to edge closer to disastrous climate change outcomes. This big picture continues to be lost while we are finalising perfect plans.

exceed them, not just come within budgets.

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At EY, we have invested in not just meeting the minimum standards, but we’re striving to achieve as much as we can. We have committed to not just being carbon negative by 2021, which was achieved, but also to reducing total emissions by 40 per cent and achieving net zero in 2025. Setting the goals is one thing – taking action to self-disrupt your business and realise the value that it will create is quite another. We’re on this journey ourselves, so we understand the challenge faced by businesses in adapting a transformation and implementation mindset. It is from

our own experience and in discussing these challenges with our clients, that we created EY Carbon, our end-to-end decarbonisation journey managed service solution that brings together expertise from across our firm to drive decarbonisation from the pages of the strategy right to action on the factory floor. Crucially, it’s not focused on creating the perfect plan.

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Bold action is required, and we won’t find the answer in documents or excel sheets, we’ll find it in our communities, our businesses, and our families. The time for perfect planning has come to pass. We need to think about our decarbonisation targets and strive to 39

environment and climate report

Catharina Sikow-Magny: Decarbonising Europe’s economy Catharina Sikow-Magny, Director of Green Transition and Energy System Integration at the European Commission, discusses the role of renewable energy in decarbonisation, the Fit for 55 legislative package, and how Ireland is leading the charge to decarbonise electricity.

The European Green Deal aims at making the EU climate neutral by 2050.

To achieve this, a binding target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030 was set by the European Commission.

To implement this ambition, the Fit for 55 package was adopted in three parts: in summer 2021, 12 legal proposals aimed at making this target a costeffective reality were published with laws specific to renewables, energy efficiency, emissions, land use, and transport. In December 2021, then, the Commission published the second part of the package with legislative proposals focusing on how to decarbonise the gases sector and buildings.

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Targets Sikow-Magny says that one of the key objectives to realise the aims of the package is the rigorous deployment of renewable energies across all sectors.

She notes that Europe had the 20-2020 targets for 2020 and met its targets by reducing emissions by 20 per cent, increased the share of renewables and improved energy efficiency.

“At the EU level, we have somewhat exceeded the 20 per cent target on renewables; we are at 21.3 per cent,” Sikow-Magny says, adding: “The situation in member states is very different as the targets were very different; Ireland has met its target with 16.2 per cent, slightly exceeding it. The specific success stories in the EU are in

the electricity sector, where 37 per cent today comes from renewable sources and here Ireland has made spectacular progress recently and can clearly show best practice examples to other member states.”

Progress In 2010, Europe had 110GW of solar and wind capacity cumulatively. Today, the EU has 120GW in solar and over 170GW in wind. In other sectors, progress has been too slow. However, sectors such as heating and cooling, industry, transport, all these sectors rely heavily on fossil fuels still, Sikow-Magny notes. “This is the situation in Ireland and everywhere in Europe almost and further efforts are needed to get these sectors on track for decarbonisation.

Here, electrification, offshore wind and renewables will play a very important role,” she says.

In the context of the gas and oil price hikes currently happening in Europe, Sikow-Magny further emphasises the need for action: “The more renewables and the more energy efficiency we can bring into the economy, the lower the pressure on imports and prices will be.

This is urgent.

Fit for 55 “The Fit for 55 package introduced a few changes to the directive. First was the ambition of the overall target, which was changed from 32 per cent to 40 per cent and given that the cost of many renewable technologies has come down significantly, 40 per cent has shown to be cost effective.

Secondly, in order to bring the change more rapidly to the underperforming sectors, we have also proposed indicative binding targets for buildings, heating and cooling, transport and industry.”

The aim for the European Commission is for 65 per cent of all electricity to come from renewables by 2030. SikowMagny states that the Commission “appreciate[s] Ireland’s position here as being one of the leading countries and the ambition Ireland has set for itself is the model for other countries to follow” before again underlining the need to bring renewables to the heating and cooling sector.

“What we also need to put in place is storage and flexibility and end-user flexibility in particular by decarbonising the industrial processes where hydrogen can play a big role,” she says, emphasising: “Hydrogen is the third point, where incentives for boosting the hydrogen economy are being put in

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“It is extremely important to fully and correctly transpose the existing Renewables Directive. The transposition deadline was summer 2021 and, by then, all member states failed to transpose the directive. Ireland has only notified partial transposition, so we will of course call for full transposition of the directive so that progress can be made. We will call for further meetings to ensure coherent compliance. In the meantime, we also tabled the new proposal for reviewing the directive. It is a focused review concerned with how to accelerate uptake of renewables.”

“The more renewables and the more energy efficiency we can bring into the economy, the lower the pressure on imports and prices will be. This is urgent.”

Catharina Sikow-Magny, Director of Green Transition and Energy System Integration, European Commission place and we also agree that hydrogen is likely to start in the industrial sector.

By 2030, we could see cross-border hydrogen emerge across the EU. “The fourth point is that we have proposed to strengthen some of the sustainability criteria that relate to biomass, which of course is a very significant source of renewables, representing 60 per cent of renewables today. While it is not increasing dramatically, it will continue to play an important role.”

Window of opportunity Sikow-Magny confirms that the Commission will look to simplify and shorten permitting procedures by promoting the uptake of corporate purchase power agreements and by fostering cooperation in areas such as offshore wind. The Commission, she says, is aware of Ireland’s unique challenges surrounding interconnection and thus is happy to see the

construction of the Celtic Interconnector progressing. “We strongly welcome Ireland’s efforts and commitments in particular to the phasing out of most polluting sources of energy such as peat,” she adds.

“The aim for high investment in energy technologies of the future such as offshore wind, storage, hydrogen, and advanced system services, is also welcome.”

The Director concludes by sounding a note of warning about the short window of opportunity: “2030 is almost tomorrow. While it is eight years from now, in terms of infrastructure and production that is very close. This is ambitious and realistic, so we need to speed up and work together to develop best practices. Ireland can play a very important role vis à vis the experience it has and good practices it has developed, but also Ireland can learn from other member states when it comes to areas where it is lagging slightly behind.”

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Ireland’s gas network: A decarbonisation solution of size and scale environment and climate report

traditionally difficult to decarbonise, such as transport, agriculture, industry, heating and reliable power generation.

“With learnings from across Europe and the UK as well as insights from our own research and development facility, we’re preparing to transform the gas network and ultimately Ireland’s entire energy system to deliver a cleaner energy future in line with national and EU policy.”

Ireland must enhance and diversify its energy supply The conflict in Ukraine has highlighted the need to enhance and diversify Ireland’s energy security through the development of a domestic renewable gas industry.

With renewable gases, the gas network will decarbonise Ireland’s energy system, says David Kelly, Gas Networks Ireland’s Director of Customer and Business Development.

Gas network of the past, present and future

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Ireland’s €2.7 billion, 14,617km national gas network is considered one of the safest and most modern gas networks in the world, securely supplying more than 30 per cent of Ireland’s total energy, including 40 per cent of all heating and almost 50 per cent of the country’s electricity generation.

In the past, the gas network brought town gas to Irish homes. This gas of the past was produced in gasworks plants around the country by burning coal.

Since natural gas was discovered off the coast of Kinsale in the 1970s, the gas network has been helping Ireland reduce its carbon footprint by transporting this gas of the present, which emits 40 per cent less CO₂ than coal and 22 per cent less CO₂ than oil to 710,000 homes and businesses in Ireland.

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The gas network is now preparing to transport the gases of the future; cleaner, renewable gases such as hydrogen and biomethane, that will enable Ireland to meet its climate action targets in the most cost effective and least disruptive way.

Speaking at the Irish Renewable Energy Summit in February, Gas Networks Ireland’s Director of Customer and Business Development, David Kelly said renewable gases will substantially reduce the country’s carbon emissions while ensuring a secure and diverse energy supply.

“Ireland’s gas network is a national decarbonisation solution of size and scale. It’s ready for renewable energy,” Kelly said.

“A net-zero carbon gas network will reduce emissions across a number of key sectors, including those that are

The European Commission’s new RePowerEU plan released on 8 March aims to reduce the European Union’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels by diversifying gas supplies and speeding up the roll-out of renewable gases.

This was followed days later by a letter to the Taoiseach from Ibec asking the Government to support the development of hydrogen and biomethane projects to both enhance the country’s energy security and provide opportunities to create a renewable gas industry in rural Ireland.

“We strongly agree with both the European Commission and Ibec’s positions on progressing the development of hydrogen and biomethane projects to both enhance the country’s energy security and create a sustainable renewable gas industry in Ireland,” Kelly said.

Biomethane will decarbonise agriculture and energy Biomethane is a carbon-neutral renewable gas that can be made from farm and food waste through a process known as anaerobic digestion. It is fully compatible with the existing national gas

network and appliances, technologies, and vehicles, meaning no expensive retrofitting is required.

Gas Networks Ireland first introduced small volumes of domestically produced biomethane onto Ireland’s gas network more than two years ago.

A large domestic biomethane industry would support the decarbonisation of the gas and electricity networks and all homes and businesses connected to them, and significantly reduce emissions in the agricultural sector.

The Sustainability of Biomethane Production in Ireland report produced by Devenish Nutrition and KPMG Sustainable Futures in October 2021, concluded that agriculturally produced biomethane can be delivered sustainably and at scale to decarbonise Ireland’s energy system, without reducing the national herd, disrupting food production, intensifying agricultural activities, or impacting on biodiversity.

“Along with playing a key role in meeting national and EU climate action targets and making us less reliant on fossil fuels, there is significant scope for biomethane production in Ireland,” Kelly said.

“As far back as 2016, the European Commission identified Ireland as having the highest potential for biomethane production per capita in Europe.

“A domestic biomethane industry will decarbonise agriculture and our economy, while also facilitating sustainable circular economies, with food and beverage businesses for example powering their operations with renewable gas made from their own waste.”

Hydrogen is a carbon free gas that can be made from renewable electricity through a process known as electrolysis and stored until needed, making it an attractive option to decarbonise Ireland’s energy system and a strong example of how greater integration between Ireland’s gas and electricity networks can support a low carbon economy.

Ali Ekhtiari from University College Dublin’s Energy Institute (UCDEI) is part of the research team working with Gas Networks Ireland at their new research and development facility in Dublin.

Ireland’s gas network, it is believed blends of up to 20 per cent hydrogen could be transported on the existing infrastructure today.

Embraced in the UK and across Europe, hydrogen is a critical component of the European Green Deal and recognised by the European Commission as offering “a solution to decarbonise industrial processes and economic sectors where reducing carbon emissions is both urgent and hard to achieve”.

Gas Networks Ireland recently completed construction of a research and development facility in Dublin to develop a detailed hydrogen technical strategy and ensure that the existing gas network is capable of safely transporting and storing both blended and 100 per cent hydrogen into the future.

Dr Ali Ekhtiari from University College Dublin’s Energy Institute (UCDEI) is part of the research team working with Gas Networks Ireland to test the operation and performance of household appliances with varying levels of

hydrogen and natural gas blends.

Using the testing facilities at both UCDEI’s Integrated Energy Lab and Gas Networks Ireland’s new off-network facility, Dr Ekhitiari and team are safely testing pipelines, meters, and appliances to understand the full potential of hydrogen in Ireland.

“Ireland has already transitioned to a cleaner gas once before, from the old town gas, which was a combination of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane, to natural gas in the 1980s.

“Ireland has a head start on this next chapter of transporting new low and carbon zero gases thanks to having one of the safest and most modern, renewables-ready gas networks in the world,” Kelly said.

T: 021 453 4000 E: press@gasnetworks.ie W: www.gasnetworks.ie

“Ireland’s gas network is a national decarbonisation solution of size and scale. It’s ready for renewable energy. With learnings from across Europe and the UK as well as insights from our own research and development facility, we’re preparing David Kelly, Gas Networks Ireland’s Director of Customer to transform the gas network and and Business Development. ultimately Ireland’s entire energy system to deliver a cleaner energy future.”

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Hydrogen will complement renewable electricity sources

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It would also provide new income opportunities for local communities from the sale of the biomethane produced, the sale of crops fed into the anaerobic digestion process and the sale of the highly effective organic bio-fertiliser digestate that is a by-product of the process.

While there is currently no hydrogen on 43

environment and climate report

Climate Action Plan 2021 In April 2022, the Dáil approved Ireland’s first ever carbon budget, a significant part of the Climate Action Plan 2021 (CAP21), which makes Ireland one of the most ambitious countries in the world on climate.

The carbon budget sets out the total amount of emissions that may be emitted in the State, measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

The first proposed carbon budget cycle lasts until 2025 and allows for a total of 295 Mt of emissions to be produced, with a limit for 200 Mt between 2026 to 2030 and 151 Mt between 2031 to 2035.

The carbon budget follows the publication of CAP21 in November 2021, which set out draft target ranges for how far each sector will be required to reduce its emissions on 2018 levels, in order for the country’s overall emissions to halve by 2030.

Annual climate action plans, essentially sectoral roadmaps for meeting national 2050 climate objectives, are required under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Acts 2015 to 2021. CAP21 identifies 475 actions,

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building on CAP19 and many of these actions have been referenced in budget allocations within the €156 billion National Development Plan.

Delivery of CAP21 will require approximately €45 billion in additional capital expenditure, €25 billion of which will be required for the buildings sector, €15 billion for the power sector, and €5 billion in transport. More broadly an estimated €125 billion will need to be mobilised towards low-carbon technologies and infrastructure out to 2030.

The share of additional total investment will vary substantially by sector, as will the expected emission cut needed.

CAP21 sets out target ranges for each sector if Ireland is to reduce emissions by 51 per cent by 2030, against 2018 figures.

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Electricity: 62-81 per cent

Buildings: 44-56 per cent

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Transport: 42-50 per cent

•

Land and forestry emissions: 37-58 per cent

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Industry: 29-41 per cent

•

Agriculture: 22-30 per cent

Electricity CAP21 raises the ambition of the proportion of renewable electricity to 80 per cent by 2030. Of the 15GW of new renewable capacity, quadrupling of current renewable capacity, 5GW is to come from offshore energy, 1.5-2.5GW from solar PV and 2GW from new gasfired power. Alongside the proposed microgeneration support scheme, the Government has pledged to introduce a small-scale generator scheme, allowing communities to feed into the grid. As well as plans to develop improved storage and deploy renewable gas, CAP21 also sets out a review of the strategy on data centres to align with sectoral emission targets.

Buildings Building on the existing commitment to retrofit 500,000 residential homes by 2030, the Government has said it recognises the need to assist broader society with retrofitting costs. A total of 50,000 commercial buildings are to be serviced by zero-carbon heating.

CAP21 sets out plans for a further three specialist training centres to be established to support the new National Retrofit Plan. A regulatory framework for district heating, as well as identifying appropriate financing mechanisms and the allocation of support to projects from the Climate Action Fund, is expected to deliver 2.7 TWh of district heating.

Transport The plan calls for a 14 per cent increase in public transport and active travel journeys by 2030, meaning 500,000 extra walking, cycling and public transport journeys per day. As well as

CAP21 raises the ambition of the proportion of renewable electricity to 80 per cent by 2030. increasing use of electric cars by 40-45 per cent of the proportion of kilometres driven, the plan also seeks a 10 per cent reduction in kilometres driven by internal combustion engine cars. By 2030, all replacement bus and commuter rail vehicles are to be low or zero carbon and CAP21 plans for an increased rollout of rural public transport through Connecting Ireland.

Land use It is recognised that in order to reduce emissions, Ireland’s land use will need to be transformed from a carbon source to a carbon sink. Doing so will require a range of measures including bog rehabilitation, grassland management, organic soil rewetting and increased afforestation. In aid of this, the Government has announced preparation for a new forestry programme launch in 2023. It is also intended that 30 per cent of Ireland’s marine area is designated as Marine Protected Area.

Industry The Government plans to produce a Climate Toolkit for business, adding to work from the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and the SEAI to decarbonise industry and align grants with other supports.

Included in the measures to cut emissions are increasing the uptake of carbon-neutral heating and decreasing the embodied carbon in building materials through more wood in construction.

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•

Agriculture The Government says it will incentivise increased organic farming and diversification into forestry, biomethane and energy production. Potentially the biggest target relates to collaboration between the agriculture and waste sectors, targeting 1.6 TWh per annum of biomethane for injection to the grid.

Alongside plans to incentivise increased organic farming, CAP21 sets out plans to explore further pathways to emissions reduction through the likes of land diversification, herd-related methane, and farm carbon trading.

Outside of the identified sectors, CAP21 identified further measures including the €100/tonne by 2030 carbon tax raising of €9.5 billon, €5 billion of which has been allocated to retrofits, €3 billion for just transition and €1.5 billion for the promotion of sustainable agriculture practices.

Additionally, a Bioeconomy Action Plan is anticipated by 2022 following the publication of the Circular Economy Strategy and targets for the public sector of 51 per cent emissions reduction and 50 per cent energy efficiency improvement from 2016-2018 levels.

Climate Action Plan 2022 is expected to fully reflect the legally adopted carbon budgets and sectoral ceilings. In recent Dáil questions, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan TD confirmed that the 2022 plan will be published in Q4 2022.

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European trends in climate litigation environment and climate report

High profile climate wins in the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium

Climate litigation, as a way of advancing a variety of strategic environmental aims, has increased over the past 30 years. These types of cases will inevitably increase as countries grapple with efforts to reduce emissions and manage their transition to a low carbon economy.

Climate litigation trends

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There is a growing public consciousness of the impact of climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report of August 2021, warning of a near inevitable, calamitous 1.5oC of warming in the next 20 years, has heightened this. The types of climate litigation being brought varies, but definite trends are emerging such as: •

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Presenting climate change as a human rights issue, with the risks of climate change engaging Article 2 thin(right to life) and Article 8 (private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights [“ECHR”];

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States are being held to account by their own judiciary to take proper steps towards their stated climate action objectives, what was once seen as an area of policy exclusively within the remit of the legislature has become a focus of legal scrutiny;

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Nuisance claims, disclosure-related litigation, and challenges to development consents due to their climate impacts are increasingly being pursued against private corporations; and

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Claims of deceptive “greenwashing” marketing campaigns are being brought before courts and nonjudicial bodies.

In December 2019, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ordered the Government to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent by the end of 2020 compared to 1990 levels. This was a historic judgment, as it was the first time a nation has been required by its courts to take action against climate change. The Dutch NGO, Urgenda, took the proceedings with nearly 900 co-plaintiffs, seeking significant reductions in Dutch greenhouse gas emissions. The Court rejected all of the State’s arguments, including the claim that emissions from the Netherlands were small (roughly around 0.4 per cent of global emissions) such that the impact of tightening its emissions reduction policies would just be a “drop in the ocean”. The Supreme Court determined that the State was required to do its “part” to counter the risk of climate change and to reduce emissions in line with its “fair share” of global emissions reductions.

Elsewhere in Europe, the German Federal Constitutional Court held that Germany's Federal Climate Change Act was unconstitutional and incompatible with fundamental rights. The Court ordered the German legislature to amend the Climate Change Act by 31 December 2022 and to introduce more specific provisions on how to reduce carbon emissions. Similarly, Belgium's mitigation policies were struck down in June 2021 as being insufficient to adequately address the effects of climate change. This was considered to be a violation of both the general duty of care recognised under Article 1382 of the Belgian Civil Code as well as Articles 2 and 8 of the ECHR. These decisions emphasised the consequences for future generations of failure to take action against climate change.

It is not just governments that have been forced to defend climate litigation. In May 2021, the Hague District Court ruled, in a claim brought against Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDS), that RDS is

obliged to reduce its carbon emissions by 45 per cent, compared to 2019 levels, by the end of 2030. The Court ruled that RDS has an unwritten duty of care to contribute to the prevention of dangerous climate change. This is the first time that a company has been held liable for reducing emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. This is under appeal.

Climate litigation in Ireland

In the second case, An Taisce challenged the grant of a planning permission to construct a €140 million cheese factory in Kilkenny. This was primarily on the basis that the environmental assessment failed to assess the wider indirect environmental consequences which would arise from the construction of this factory i.e., expansion of the national herd, which would in turn lead to enhanced methane and other greenhouse gas emissions. In February 2022, the Supreme Court

Mark Thuillier, Associate

“It is not just governments that have been forced to defend climate litigation. In May 2021, the Hague District Court ruled, in a claim brought against Royal Dutch Shell PLC, that RDS is obliged to reduce its carbon emissions by 45 per cent, compared to 2019 levels, by the end of 2030.” disagreed with the High Court, expressing concern about artificially expanding the remit of environmental assessment legislation. It concluded that generally speaking (and there could be narrow exceptions to this), indirect environmental impacts arising from inputs or outputs (like milk production or plastic wrapping on cheese) did not require to be assessed.

separation of powers. Given the urgent need to reduce emissions, and the growing volume of climate legislation and plans at both an EU and Irish level, this trend of novel and creative climate challenges is only likely to grow.

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Two recent Irish Supreme Court decisions reflect the benefits, but also the limitations, of such challenges. In June 2020, Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) successfully challenged Ireland's National Mitigation Plan in a case known as Climate Case Ireland, for its failure to ensure that Ireland met its “national transition objective” of a low carbon and environmentally resilient future, as required under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of FIE and quashed the Plan, owing to its lack of specificity.

Alan Roberts, Partner

environment and climate report

Alison Fanagan, Consultant

Alison Fanagan Consultant, A&L Goodbody E: afanagan@algoodbody.com

Conclusion Climate litigation places courts in a challenging position, where they are often forced to confront contentious policy issues, navigate difficulties in dealing with scientific evidence and the limitations of certain environmental assessments, and strike an appropriate balance in their role under the

Alan Roberts Partner, A&L Goodbody E: aroberts@algoodbody.com Mark Thuillier Associate, A&L Goodbody E: mthuillier@algoodbody.com

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environment and climate report

The circular economy and climate ambitions Assistant Secretary leading the Circular Economy, Natural Resources and Waste Policy function in the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC), Philip Nugent, discusses the importance of the circular economy transition as a companion to climate action in Ireland.

Outlining progress on his directorate’s ambitions over the past year, not least the establishment of a circular economy as a mainstream function of the Department, the development of the circular economy strategy and the driving of circular economy-related actions in the Waste Action Plan, Nugent says that while progress is welcome, the transition for Ireland and the EU remains very challenging.

The Assistant Secretary stresses the need to shift the focus of the circular economy beyond waste and recognise it as a key component of climate action.

“The emissions arising from waste are a tiny part of our national inventory.

Instead, our major emissions savings lie

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on the materials management side, to reduce our production and consumption emissions,” he says.

“We need to shift the focus from thinking about the circular economy as a thing that is to do with waste to one that is a cross-sectoral enabler of climate action across all sectors.”

Setting out the context for the need for acceleration of the circular economy agenda, Nugent highlights estimations that business-as-usual will require three planets to continue. “Renewables and energy efficiency will get us so far but embedding circularity across all sectors will get us further,” he states.

“Up to 80 per cent of product environmental impacts are determined at design phase and we need to reduce life-cycle climate and environmental footprints of products. Ireland is probably too small to do that on its own, that is why there is great strength for us in working with EU colleagues to ensure that we can achieve it at community level.”

Nugent stresses the need to pursue circularity principles across multiple regulatory codes to embed circularity principles and believes that clear data on material flows, is a key component of moving the circular economy “from the margins into the mainstream”.

However, the number one challenge he identifies in this area is around communication and the need to “demystify the circular economy” as a concept.

“It is really important that people understand the inextricable link between the circular economy and the climate action process. There is a risk that we do not fully appreciate the extent of the communication challenge and how people might struggle to break down what the circular economy can mean for households, businesses or organisations and I think the more working examples we can provide, be that a ban on disposable coffee cups or the presence of reverse vending machines through the deposit and return scheme, the more the dial will be shifted in terms of recognising the benefits.”

The Waste Action Plan for a Circular Economy, published in September 2020, contains a number of headline actions, including a deposit and return scheme for plastic bottles and aluminium cans, set for commencement later this year and the recently approved Circular Economy Bill provides for a range of initiatives including a waste recovery levy to encourage recycling, new 2030 sustainable packaging targets, the application of incentivised pricing to commercial waste and placing the new whole of Government Circular Economy Strategy 2022-2023 on a statutory footing.

Explaining how the circular economy can extend beyond waste and apply to all sectors, Nugent points to characteristics including designing for circularity, products as a service, reverse logistics and industrial symbiosis, as examples of how it can be applied. In turn, such actions will have environmental, economic, and social benefits.

Performance Nugent outlines his belief that there are serious advantages in a country like Ireland being an early adapter of circularity in a European context but admits that to date, performance has been somewhat poor.

Recent statistics show that Ireland’s circular material use rate was the second worst in the EU, with a 1.6 per cent rate comparing unfavourably to the EU average of 11.9 per cent and worse still than leading nations such as the Netherlands, which boasts a high of 28.5 per cent.

The Assistant Secretary believes a number of reasons have contributed to Ireland’s poor performance, including the structure of the domestic economy and Ireland’s location as an island on the geographical periphery of the EU, however, he is positive in that seeking to accelerate its circular economy, through overarching circular economy policies, Ireland can join the trend of countries which have previously done so to great success.

Outlining how the publication of the Whole-of-Government Circular Economy Strategy, published at the end of 2021, will assist, Nugent says it will: •

provide a national policy framework for Ireland’s transition to a circular economy and promote public sector leadership in adopting circular policies and practices;

•

support and implement measures that significantly reduce Ireland’s

environment and climate report

In 2019, research conducted by the EPA and Ibec found that only 51 per cent of Ibec member companies understand what is meant by circular economy, emphasising that the public understanding of the principle is poor.

“It is really important that people understand the inextricable link between the circular economy and the climate action process.” circularity gap, so that Ireland’s rate is above the EU average by 2030; •

raise awareness amongst households, business and individuals about the circular economy and how it can improve their lives;

•

support and promote increased investment in the circular economy in Ireland, with a view to delivering sustainable, regionally balanced economic growth and employment;

•

identify and address the economic, regulatory, and social barriers to Ireland's transition to a more circular economy; and

•

enable a new Circular Economy Advisory Group to support implementation of this strategy and help develop a Circular Economy Strategy 2.0.

Considering why an emphasis was already being placed on the development of a subsequent strategy, Nugent states: “We recognise that, to a large extent, this current strategy is about socialising the concept of the circular economy and setting the direction, however, the next strategy needs to be much more action-focused in a way that the Waste Action Plan is.”

Nugent adds: “There are specific actions in the current strategy, most of which are focused on how the public sector can lead by example but we need to ratchet up that ambition and make sure we adopt a much more action-focused approach in subsequent iterations of the strategy.”

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environment and climate report

Developing sustainable buildings through circular design

The construction sector is witnessing an unprecedented policy and regulatory environment for climate-related legislation and action plans in Ireland.

Organisations are becoming concerned about the impact of climate-related risks on their business, strategy, and outlook, writes Matt Kennedy, Carbon

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and Climate Lead, at Arup in Ireland.

The transformation of the buildings sector will be driven by climate mitigation requirements and climate risks to assets. Yet, it often appears as if the design, construction, and operation of buildings give little consideration to the amount of carbon emitted.

Global carbon emissions from buildings and construction were 37 per cent of total emissions in 20201, with the built environment being responsible for almost 50 per cent of raw materials consumption in Europe2. Given the 50

scale of such emissions, the achievement of more sustainable outcomes that benefit organisations and contribute to meeting targets or mitigating climate risks must be prioritised.

Almost half of global greenhouse gas emissions come from embodied carbon emitted through the production and operational processes. Future designs need to eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials, and regenerate nature to help tackle climate

change.

Designers need to become more conscious of the carbon and material consequences of every stage of a building’s lifecycle. While the current strategy to 2030 is focused on reducing operational carbon emissions in buildings, a wider net zero perspective that embeds circular economy techniques within properties is needed.

Building designers, construction companies and asset owners face everincreasing demands that are impacting the pursuit of low carbon, resourceefficient buildings.

Our solution Arup and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation have co-created a Circular Buildings Toolkit. We are aiding the transition towards a circular economy model of ‘eliminate, circulate, regenerate’ by offering a path towards net zero emissions.

We want to demonstrate how the property sector can reduce embodied carbon and increase material efficiency.

We want to contribute to accelerating decarbonisation of, and wider systemic change within, the global property sector.

environment and climate report

This is about embedding circularity across the property sector value chain and helping to deliver fast and scalable reductions in built environment carbon emissions. By reimagining our buildings as an asset bank, materials can be repurposed and stay in use for longer.

Given the startling scale of emission growth, we have made this toolkit accessible online and free to use as we want to encourage the toolkit’s adoption across asset owners, developers, and investors.

Delivering more sustainable outcomes Our Circular Buildings Toolkit provides a series of practical actions to embed circular practices across the lifecycle of a building, alongside several case studies that help bring the strategy to life. It has an overall aim of reducing waste and carbon emissions and so targets construction materials, which currently lose 95 per cent of their value as buildings depreciate and are eventually demolished.

At Arup, we are also focused on the avoidance of stranded assets. We want to help investors, building owners and developers to prevent their assets from becoming devalued in the first instance, while also striving to generate future value, allowing the sector to deliver on its climate-neutrality ambitions. The Circular Buildings Toolkit supports organisations to keep their property assets in use at their highest value for as long as possible. Away from the value destruction linked to demolition, the Toolkit also helps recast assets as ‘materials banks’, helping the real estate, construction and manufacturing industry sectors to generate value.

“We want to demonstrate how the property sector can reduce embodied carbon and increase material efficiency. We want to contribute to accelerating decarbonisation of, and wider systemic change within, the global property sector.” increase biodiversity and create added economic and social value.

Learning from exemplar practice Our toolkit includes best practice circularity case studies, e.g., the People’s Pavilion in the Netherlands which was made entirely from borrowed materials, prefabricated timber structures in London and a modular lighting system in Seoul.

Embedding circularity at the heart of building design and operations will enable building owners and operators to reduce consumption-based emissions,

The toolkit has already been used by Arup and Futur2K during the design and construction of ADPT, a new circular building system which will unveil its first

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In terms of preventing stranded asset risk, we are anticipating new regulations relating to circular performance and decarbonisation of assets in response to instruments such as the EU Taxonomy.

We are also limiting the risk of potential write-downs.

prototype in Essen, Germany in May. In this project, the toolkit has been used to create a system of timber units that can be adapted to many uses. Flexibility and versatility are key: each module can be configured to meet a range of purposes, from commercial to residential, and floor plans that can be flexed to meet current and future needs.

The future of design is circular. We want to help organisations across the built environment to design out waste and maximise the lifecycle and value of products and materials.

T: +353 1 233 44 55

1. 2021 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction, Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction. https://www.unep.org/resources/report/2021-global-status-reportbuildings-and-construction 2. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/industry/sustainability/buildings-and-construction_en

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‘Now or never’ for limiting warming

Immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors are required if global warming is to be limited to 1.5oC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned.

In the third in a series of assesment reports by the IPCC designed to update governments and policy makers on the latest scientific findings related to tackling climate changes, IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair Jim Skea described a “now or never” scenario if global warming is to be limited to below the target set out in the Paris climate accord.

In August 2021, a previous report by the IPCC, detailing the potential impacts of rising global temperatures, was described as a “code red for humanity” by the UN Secretary General António Guterres. The latest report published in April 2022, is designed to set out the scale of measures that are required to limit warming to an acceptable level.

The report outlines that even with all existing national decarbonisation ambitions implemented, by the end of the century, global temperatures will rise by 3.2oC For context, severe and extreme weather patterns currently seen across the globe are the result of a 1.1oC rise.

Underscoring the need for transformative changes to everything from energy systems to land use and investment, the report says that limiting warming to 1.5oC will require a 43 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 levels by 2030.

Carbon emissions would need to peak in the next three years, falling rapidly after that, reaching net zero by 2050.

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The type and scale of some of the

actions that will be required are detailed in the report, including:

• Fossil fuels Despite global pledges to reduce emissions, the reality is that emissions rose by 6 per cent in 2021, in parallel with economic activity. As expected, the report highlights that this alignment will only be broken if fossil fuels are removed. The scale of reduction required will mean traditional coal use would have to fall by 95 per cent by 2050 and the report suggests the 85 per cent decrease in alternative green energy technologies since 2010 is an enabler of ending the age of fossil fuel.

and industries for not transforming their processes.

• Efficiency Also new, the report includes a chapter on the social aspects of mitigating emissions, with a focus on reducing demand for energy in the areas of mobility, nutrition, and shelter. Highlighting that approximately 10 per cent of the world’s richest households are responsible for 40 per cent of global emissions, the report states that changing individual behaviours could cut emissions by between 40 to 70 per cent by 2050.

• Finance • Carbon dioxide removal Simply decarbonising current processes will not be enough, and for the first time the report identifies the importance of carbon removal from the atmosphere. The IPCC has endorsed carbon dioxide removal (CDR), be that through removal technologies such as filters or increased trees, however, it acknowledges that the preservation and expansion of forests to absorb carbon will not “fully compensate for delayed action” in other sectors.

Critics have said that the focus on technology presents too easy a solution for high-polluting countries

Understandably, greater investment is needed in low-carbon energy if warming is to be limited. Investment will need to increase by around three to six times than current levels, but the IPCC report stresses that some of the additional investment required already exists. Alongside recommending the removal of government subsidies for fossil fuel, the report points out the existing financial cost of climate disaster recovery and suggests that efforts to lower warming, while probably slightly costlier than limiting warming, brings with it much greater cobenefits.

environment and climate report

All-Ireland Pollinator Plan: Boosting biodiversity Úna FitzPatrick, Project Manager of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan (AIPP), discusses how the plan, now in its second iteration, can encourage biodiversity action across all sectors.

“We have amazing biodiversity in Ireland, but biodiversity loss is a huge problem,” assesses FitzPatrick, who sets out that often the biggest challenge is that the complexity of biodiversity means that people and organisations find it difficult to feel empowered to know how to tackle it.

FitzPatrick works for the National Biodiversity Data Centre (NBDC), which manages information on Ireland’s wildlife and has recognised that identifying simple vehicles, such as a focus on pollinators, can be used to carry the biodiversity message to a wide audience.

Setting the context of the challenge, the project manager says that Ireland has approximately 31,500 species living within 117 habitats. Of the habitats assessed, only 15 per cent are deemed to be in a good state, while 17 per cent of species are threatened with extinction from Ireland.

On the reasoning for the focus on pollinators, FitzPatrick explains: “Pollinators are an element of biodiversity that people understand and relate to and the need for actions can be communicated as a clean and simple message.

Additionally, changes can be easily monitored and importantly, protecting pollinators has knock-on benefits for biodiversity generally.”

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Around 90 per cent of the world’s food is provided by 100 crops, 71 of which are pollinated by bees, and Ireland’s value of insect pollination to food crops is estimated to be up to €59 million per year. The Project Manager explains that while an awareness of the role of pollinators in food production exists, what is often overlooked is the impact of pollinators on wider biodiversity. A total of 78 per cent of Ireland’s wild plants benefit from insect pollination.

“Wild plants sustain all other biodiversity, as well as providing carbon sequestration and flood mitigation services, not to mention the joy, and health benefits, of places where we can connect with nature, the importance of which has been highlighted by the pandemic,” she says.

The plight of pollinators is aligned with decline in Ireland’s biodiversity. A prime example of which is the island’s 101 bee species. Aside from the honeybee, most commonly farmed, 100 of the bee species are wild but one-third are threatened with extinction from Ireland.

NBDC data shows a significant decline in the abundance of common bumblebees since 2012.

FitzPatrick assesses: “Rare species are disappearing through loss of semi-natural habitats and common species are declining in abundance as a consequence of how we manage the rest of the landscape.”

The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan was developed in 2015 as a collectively agreed positive framework to address the problem and identify evidence-based actions to help. In essence, as FitzPatrick outlines, it was a call to action recognising that everyone can help.

The All-island Pollinator Plan 2015-2020 boasts a range of successes, not least that 86 per cent of the island’s councils have become partners. Additionally, Green Flag awards have allowed many parks to become pollinator friendly, as has the Tidy Towns competition in including over 200 communities and alongside schools, supporting businesses have risen to well over 300.

environment and climate report

FitzPatrick adds: “This work has culminated in over 2,400 sites being logged as pollinator-friendly and a significant increase in volunteer recording. Other notable successes include the Farmland EIP project 2019-2023, which protects farmland pollinators and the establishment of the Irish Pollinator Research Network.”

A new version of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan for 2021-2025 was recently published and FitzPatrick explains that the ethos for the plan was to be more ambitious yet remain realistic.

“We want to build on the first phase and encourage more land to be managed for pollinators and biodiversity,” she says.

The plan has six objectives in the form of: 1

making farmland pollinator friendly;

2

making public land pollinator friendly;

3

making private land pollinator friendly;

4

all-Ireland Honeybee Strategy;

5

conserving rare pollinators; and

6

strategic coordination of the plan.

Accompanying these objectives are 186 actions, a significant increase from the 81 included in the first plan. Included in these actions are a variety of initiatives ranging from expansion into new sites, such as healthcare, the encouragement of more ecological corridors and the establishment of a Wild Bee Way, celebrating the excellent examples of restored pollinator habitat across the island.

“Rare species are disappearing through loss of seminatural habitats and common species are declining in abundance as a consequence of how we manage the rest of the landscape.”

More fundamentally, FitzPatrick outlines work underway to better track changes and monitor pollinators across a fixed network of 50 sites beginning 2022 and a push to better explain the wider benefits of pollinator actions, particularly to climate and health and wellbeing.

Importantly, the project manager says that at the end of year one of the plan, 81 per cent of the 186 actions are either completed or in train. However, she acknowledges that the plan’s ambitions are not without challenges and recognises the need to fully normalise a better way of managing the island’s whole landscape to permanently support struggling biodiversity.

To this end she says that long-term participation with the AIPP needs to be built on not only trust in the experts running the programme but also acknowledgements of the efforts made and crucially, clear demonstrations that the actions taken are making a difference and having a positive impact.

“Lots of small actions, taken together, can begin to solve big problems,” she concludes.

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environment and climate report

Harnessing Ireland’s wind and hydrogen potential strategy, Driven to Make a Difference: Net Zero by 2040, the ability to produce and store green hydrogen at scale from floating offshore wind is a key component in terms of delivering a clean energy system for Ireland. It could also prove to be a game-changer in terms of enhancing the country’s energy security.

In light of increasing energy prices and the need to source energy from alternative sources, the European Union is stepping up measures to improve its energy security and reduce its dependency on gas imports, writes Jim Dollard, Executive Director of Generation and Trading at ESB. Ireland can take major steps in this

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direction by harnessing the country’s abundant floating offshore wind potential to generate green hydrogen and in doing so, create an indigenous carbon free fuel source which can be stored in large volumes.

The Programme for Government outlines the potential for 30GW of floating offshore wind in Ireland. Unlike fixed offshore wind, floating has the potential to create a bespoke supply chain in Ireland with all the associated economic benefits.

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A report on behalf of ESB by BVG Associates has indicated that just one 400MW floating offshore project has the potential to create almost €1 billion in gross value added (GVA) to Ireland as well as thousands of direct, indirect, and induced jobs. Early development of the floating offshore wind opportunity will position Ireland strongly to build an enduring supply chain capability in this country, delivering jobs and investment to Ireland, as opposed to other countries who have similar potential to develop these supply chains.

As outlined in ESB’s recently launched

Ireland has a tremendous opportunity to develop a major indigenous energy storage capability, with ESB already having set out its stall with a number of key project proposals including Green Atlantic at Moneypoint. As part of this ambitious project, ESB will transform the County Clare site into a renewable hub which includes a floating offshore wind farm, wind turbine foundation construction hub, a green hydrogen production, storage, and generation facility. The first component, a €50 million synchronous compensator which will enable higher volumes of renewables on the system, will be commissioned later in 2022.

This capability will be key in solving the issue of renewables intermittency, delivering zero carbon dispatchable power and most critically, provide Ireland with increased energy security.

The scale of the opportunity is very significant and could see Ireland reaching energy independence in the medium term. This needs to start now to maximise the many associated benefits for Ireland.

An accelerated approach to floating offshore wind and green hydrogen will ensure our renewable energy targets are met, will deliver material energy security benefits for Ireland, and will provide the potential to grow a supply chain of scale on this Island.

W: www.esb.ie

environment and climate report

Green deal: Environmental compliance Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, Director of Compliance, Governance and Support to member states in the European Commission’s DG Environment says that much work remains to be done if Ireland is to bridge the gap of environmental compliance.

In an address setting out the proposed actions of the EU Commission in relation to the environment in 2022, the Director took the opportunity to identify a number of significant shortcomings for Ireland in relation to its environmental responsibilities.

Ciobanu-Dordea identified four areas in particular but was most strident in relation to access to justice, stating that the European Commission will act if Ireland does not address litigation costs.

“Ireland continues to be the most expensive member state in which to make an environmental claim before the courts,” he highlights, adding: “The case law of the national courts has meandered through different interpretations on the cost rules and has left many environmental litigants unable to predict with any certainty the costs exposure.”

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The Director says that a particular concern for the EU Commission was an “increasingly aggressive” stance being taken against environmental campaigners, highlighting the use of strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) suits but also pointing a finger at mainstream media and politicians.

Stating that the rule of law and its respect, in relation to protection of the environment, is one of the biggest priorities of the Commission, the Director described circumstances in Ireland as “disappointing, and even worrying” and called for a “radical change of behaviour”, describing such conducts as highly unusual for an advanced society like Ireland.

In relation to water, the Director said that Irish authorities still had significant work

to do, pointing out that around 50 per cent of urban wastewaters are still not collected and treated in compliance with the Urban Wastewater Directive and highlighting leakage rates recorded as one of the highest in Europe.

Adding that the Water Framework Directive has still not been fully transposed into Irish law and outlining increased pressure on water quality, particularly from agricultural sources, Ciobanu-Dordea says that he hopes 2022 will be a year of more decisive action by Irish authorities than in the past.

Speaking in a wider EU context, Ciobanu-Dordea says that a priority of the EU Commission is to demonstrate that the Water Framework Directive “is not a paper tiger” and that there are strong elements and obligations within it.

environment and climate report

Pointing to a pilot investigation launched in 2021, the Director says that he wants to see it continued, adding: “We will move in certain cases for certain obligations because we want to make sure that all the domestic authorities which are relevant for water use, including agricultural authorities, are on board and that coherent and strong actions are applied in order to attain the targets of the Directive.”

Biodiversity On the “serious challenges” that exist in relation to nature and biodiversity in Ireland, the Director says that while the Commission has welcomed the completion of the terrestrial designation of special protection areas for birds, “we have noted there is significant work to be done to protect terrestrial birds in practice,” he explains.

The Director called for urgent action to address the serious decline of certain breeding birds, particularly farmland birds and called for the need to finalise identification and designation of marine sites, highlighting Ireland’s holding of one of the European Natura 2000 network’s poorest records with less than 2.5 per cent of marine waters protected.

“The case law of the national courts has meandered through different interpretations on the cost rules and has left many environmental litigants unable to predict with any certainty the costs exposure.”

“Action is also needed to address the decline in terrestrial sites under the Habitats Directive. Ireland’s own habitats report shows that only 15 per cent of habitats are in favourable condition and over half are suffering from ongoing decline,” he says, raising the issue of peat bogs, in the context of ongoing legal proceedings brought by the Commission.

Finally, Ciobanu-Dordea highlights that Ireland is the only member state yet to transpose the revised Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive, adding that despite being classified as key economic activities, no EIA has been carried out in the areas of peat extraction or afforestation.

“Both are regularly the subject matter of complaints cited to the Commission of negative pressures on biodiversity in Ireland’s own Article 17 reports on conservation status,” he says.

Ciobanu-Dordea was speaking in the wider context of plans by the Commission to bring forward a range of environmental policy initiatives in 2022 and 2023 as part of its Green Deal. Published prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Director stresses that the Green Deal will remain a main political compass for the Commission.

Ciobanu-Dordea believes that a focus on the green transition will help build further strategic autonomy, which he says the pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis has revealed as key for the European Union.

“We will keep this political compass with a focus on the green deal by also bearing in mind the challenges and opportunities the green transition can bring to our societies.

Not everyone is equipped in the same way economically and socially to face the green transition, and this is why we have developed a Just Transition Fund and a social fund to accompany the climate transition. However, we will need to embed further awareness about the social pressures in the legislative proposals we will bring to the fore in 2022 and the following years.”

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environment and climate report

The future of waste to energy The thermal treatment of waste to recover energy is not a new concept, writes Catherine Joyce-O’Caollai, Corporate Affairs Manager of Indaver.

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Waste-to-energy facilities treat black-bin waste that cannot be reused or recycled to produce energy in the form of electricity or heat. The electricity is exported to the grid, while steam or hot water can be delivered via district heating networks to provide space and water heating needs to homes and industry, typically through a network of insulated underground pipes. While the production of renewable electricity and heat make an important contribution in meeting Ireland’s climate and renewable energy targets, Indaver is currently exploring the potential of hydrogen production to assist in the decarbonisation of hard to abate sectors, along with carbon dioxide (CO2) recovery.

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Plans at Indaver for a 10MWe hydrogen electrolyser would make use of energy which would otherwise be wasted during times of electricity curtailment. This typically happens at Meath Waste-toEnergy on windy days or nights when supply outstrips demand whereby the facility is instructed to reduce the export of electricity to the grid. There are a range of potential end uses for this hydrogen, such as injection into the gas grid, for use as a transport fuel or to replace the use of fossil fuels in energyintensive manufacturing industries.

A European Union (EU) funded initiative, the HECTOR project, has even seen the deployment of hydrogen-fuelled refuse collection vehicles.

The EU recognises the importance of hydrogen in an evolving energy system.

The European Commission’s 2020 Hydrogen Strategy for a climate-neutral Europe clearly outlined its ambition for hydrogen in order expand its use in sectors where it can replace fossil fuels.

The EU’s Fit for 55 legislative package, which aims to reduce its net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030, includes proposals to enable and promote the use of hydrogen in the wider energy mix.

Carbon capture use (CCU) technologies involve the capture of CO2 from industrial processes such as waste-toenergy, for use in a range of sectors such as food production. Capturing carbon for re-use elsewhere, such as the horticultural sector for heating greenhouses, would have the added benefit of avoiding the use of fossil fuels. As communities and businesses in Ireland work towards a GHG emissions reduction target of 51 per cent by 2030, Indaver has the potential to play a role in assisting sectors which may be unsuitable for electrification replace their fossil fuel consumption.

T: +353 1 697 2900 E: catherine.joyceocaollai@indaver.com W: www.indaver.com

environment and climate report

Fit for 55: Fast-tracking public renewable energy projects Fine Gael MEP for Ireland South, Seán Kelly, speaks to eolas about his proposals under the EU’s Fit for 55 initiative to remove obstacles to planning and permitting in order to accelerate the development of public renewable energy projects.

“We cannot achieve our Green Deal targets without a massive expansion of renewable energy,” Kelly says.

“We have the capability to thrive in climate neutral Europe, but this will take a widespread uptake from all stakeholders, backed by government and society more broadly.”

As Kelly emphasises, wind and solar power are both intermittent, meaning that Ireland must plan to replace its fossil fuel-based backup system with battery storage 62

and demand response as well as utilising the energy storage of molecules such as hydrogen that are produced with renewable energy. However, “we also cannot hide from the fact” that there will still be “a role to play for transitional fuels until then”. The speed with which that transition can be conducted is currently constrained, Kelly argues, and the Kerry native states that this must be addressed.

“The core goal is to decarbonise the economy and

energy system; we do not have time for this process to be tainted by ideology,” he says, insisting: “The reality is that if we are able to be successful in this transition, we must fast-track the removal of planning or marketbased obstacles to ensure rapid delivery of renewable energy technologies. Permitting and licensing procedures remain one of the biggest hurdles in achieving mass deployment of renewable technologies.

Procedures for granting permits differ in member

national law”. “This new project status should ensure a prioritisation by the competent authority and the streamlining of processes and procedures,” he says.

“The label would effectively guarantee that necessary, positive renewable energy projects will receive far quicker licensing and planning authorisation. Each member state should carry out strategic plans detailing how they will adapt their permit system to ensure that they will reach their commitments under the energy and

environment and climate report

“There is a serious need for Ireland to change its regulatory and planning system. Although action is being taken, we are not moving quickly enough to develop offshore wind projects needed to meet targets in the Government’s Climate Action Plan.” states, and with more cross-border cooperation on energy projects, we are likely to see more and more unnecessary time wasted on getting the required bureaucracy in order.”

While Kelly speaks in general terms about Europe, he emphasises the need for reform in Ireland, where his own party is currently in government with both Fianna Fáil and the Green Party: “There is a serious need for Ireland to change its regulatory and planning system.

Although action is being taken, we are not moving quickly enough to develop offshore wind projects needed to meet targets in the Government’s Climate Action Plan. This leads to a lack of confidence in industry and the supply chain, and it must be urgently addressed.

“Beyond the regulatory framework, more resources need to be allocated to planning authorities so they can speed up applications for positive energy projects. This situation is not unique to Ireland and to put it bluntly, if we collectively do not address permitting and planning, then we are doomed to fail the next generation.”

In July 2021, the European Commission unveiled its Fit for 55 legislation package, aimed at supporting the delivery of a 55 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The package contains legislative proposals to align climate, energy, and transport policies across the European Union. These include: the application of emissions trading to new sectors and a tightening of the existing EU Emissions Trading System; the increased use of renewable energy and greater energy efficiency; a faster rollout of low emission transport modes and the infrastructure and fuels to support them; an alignment of taxation policies with the European Green Deal objectives; and measures to prevent carbon leakage and tools to preserve and grow our natural carbon sinks.

Under these principles, Kelly is proposing the introduction of a new label on public interest renewable projects “that will allow the granting of priority status in

climate plans. This, I believe, should be done via the Renewable Energy Directive Article 15 and 16. I am currently in discussion concerning this within the European People’s Party group, and I have been encouraged by their reaction to my proposals.”

Kelly makes a macro-observation before delivering his conclusion, reflecting on how the Earth has seen these energy transitions before, from the use of coal emerging during the Industrial Revolution and crude oil following the first World War, and must act now to address the great challenge of this generation. “Instead of an evolution of energy sources that are more efficient in terms of energy output, we now have to redesign our fuel and electricity systems so that we can maintain societal and economic order while staying within our planetary boundaries,” he says.

“Combined with the short time we have to make this fundamental switch; this energy transition is certainly unique, and the task cannot be overstated. It is clear that addressing climate change will be pivotal to the future growth of our economies as the cost of inaction now will be far exceeded by the cost involved with adaptation, never mind the societal and political instability this would create.”

Concluding, he calls on the European Commission to oversee this process and ensure member states are fulfilling their duties to make Europe fit for 55: “Member states should report to the Commission based on key performance indicators [KPIs], including whether or not planning authorities are adequately resourced. The Commission should publish these indicators together with an assessment and recommendations, ranking the different approaches taken, and take every effort to encourage member states to achieve higher scores in terms of KPIs. “We have the technology, the expertise and the capacity; there are many technical problems to face but we really do not have any excuse to have a permitting and licensing system that slows needed progress.”

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Harnessing the potential of AI to enable more powerful processing and analysis of earth observation data

Artificial intelligence (AI) modelling is only possible with large amounts of quality data. ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ is an often-quoted tru-ism in this field, reflecting that AI models need to be trained using large volumes of data, but also that this data must be quality controlled, preprocessed and mathematically manipulated to achieve the desired performance from the model, writes Jenny Advertorial

Hanafin, Earth Observation Activity Lead at ICHEC. This process requires both human and computational effort and creating training data is usually the most costly part of an AI exercise. So, training datasets (TDS) are a valuable resource but sharing them openly is not straightforward.

With the arrival of New Space, the cost of putting satellites into space has come down by orders of magnitude, resulting in a flurry of new satellites in orbit and an exponential increase in the volume of 64

data available. With such large volumes of earth observation (EO) data now available, AI is becoming necessary to carry out processing and analysis to glean insights. The lack of training datasets is becoming a major bottleneck in more widespread and systematic use of machine learning in EO, however.

The aim of the AIREO project was to provide resources to standardise aspects of TDS, along with tools to allow data creators to share their data so that users can use it appropriately.

One major issue is a knowledge gap between AI practitioners (TDS users, usually IT specialists) and EO experts (TDS creators, usually scientists or data scientists). The users often do not have experience with essential concepts such as map projections, file formats, calibration, and quality assurance. Other issues include: a lack of, or inaccessibility of, high-quality TDS; absence of standards resulting in inconsistent and heterogeneous TDS; limited discoverability and interoperability of TDS; and lack of bestpractices and guidelines for generating, structuring and describing TDS. To address these some basic principles were established: TDS should be selfexplanatory; TDS should be shared following FAIR principles; TDS should be published in a form ready for use in AI/ML applications. Based on these principles, a set of specifications and best practice guidelines for data creators and users was produced, along with a python library and some sample datasets to help users to apply the recommendations.

Partners The AIREO activity is led by the Irish Centre for High-End Computing at National University of Ireland, Galway, in collaboration with Ireland’s Centre for Applied AI (CeADAR) at University College Dublin and is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) Phi-Lab. ICHEC is the Irish national centre for high-performance computing and hosts the Irish archive of ESA data.

Community driven One of the keys for success in this project was engagement with expert community members to identify how to develop the resources to fulfil the needs of both data creators and users. More than 100 experts across the globe have provided input through the AIREO

network. They have had access to all up-to-date material released by the project and have helped with workshops, one-to-one consultations and surveys organised by the project to give feedback and provide direction for further work.res to establish how FAIR the data is.

Documentation and metadata specification

environment and climate report

The specifications and guidelines were developed using FAIR principles which stipulate that data should be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

In order to make training data sets (TDS) more reusable, one of the aims of the specification was to standardise the metadata included with an AIREO TDS. The specification also establishes different levels of required, recommended and optional metadata elements to assist data creators in prioritising more important metadata.

Compliance levels allow users to quickly assess whether a dataset is fully described in metadata and is FAIR-compliant, whether it contains only the minimal required set of metadata or whether it is somewhere between these two.

The metadata is based on existing Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and SpatioTemporal Asset Catalog (STAC) standards and specifications relevant to earth observation data and machine learning applications with some additions to include innovative elements identified by the AIREO activity.

Additional elements include quality indicator metadata to help data providers:

Jenny Hanafin is the Earth Observation Activity Lead at ICHEC. Her extensive experience in many aspects of remote sensing, includes operating satellite sensors for EUMETSAT while a postdoc at Imperial College London, to developing a system to retrieve atmospheric humidity from the Ordnance Survey

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publish structured data quality estimates and elements for users;

Ireland network of GPS receivers for use in the Met Éireann forecast model. Her

assess the FAIRness of their datasets and where improvements could be made and convey this to users; and

Galway, and PhD in Physical Oceanography and Meteorology at the Rosenstiel

describe data provenance: sources, processing history and feature engineering recipes.

qualifications include BSc in Marine Science, National University of Ireland, School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami.

accessed through the following link: aireo_lib. The aim of the library functions are: ●

Compliance

AIREO python library The open-source AIREO python library provides basic functionality for data providers and users and can be

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to assist dataset users to perform high level exploratory data analysis on an AIREO TDS. The library allows the users to explore the statistical properties of the TDS through the metadata in the catalogue and to visualise key aspects of the data; and to help users load an AIREO TDS and access it through common data formats used by the ML community (numpy arrays, xarray, etc.) so it can be used in training ML models in widely used libraries and platforms with minimal effort.

At this point, the AIREO Specification, Best Practice Guidelines and Python library are available to all interested parties on the AIREO website: www.aireo.net.

This release is a vital step to enable more training datasets to become

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A key innovation is the definition of AIREO compliance levels. Compliance levels allow users to quickly assess whether a dataset is fully described in metadata and is FAIR-compliant, whether it contains only the minimal required set of metadata or whether it is somewhere between these two. These levels also assist data providers to prioritise which metadata they could focus on to provide a more accessible dataset for users.

to help dataset creators to generate and document TDS which are FAIR, are of high quality and adhere to the AIREO specifications;

Future developments

available. The resources themselves are at the stage where they will develop through hands-on use by the community and feedback received will be used in future versions and updates.

T: 01 524 1608 E: jenny.hanafin@ichec.ie W: www.ichec.ie

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conference report

Irish Renewable Energy Summit 2022 Speakers: David Kelly, Gas Networks Ireland; Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications; William Walsh, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and Maria Ryan, SSE Renewables.

The annual Irish Renewable Energy Summit took place as a hybrid event in February 2022. Attendees joined us both in Croke Park, Dublin and virtually and heard from a number of local and visiting speakers including Eamon Ryan, TD, Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications; Catharina Sikow-Magny, European Commission; Claire Haggett, The University of Edinburgh and James Carton, Dublin City University. In partnership with the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and supported by Gas Networks Ireland, SSE Renewables and Technology Partner, Hitachi Energy, the summit brought together key stakeholders from across the energy sector to discuss how the contribution from renewable energy can be maximised and implemented most effectively.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our summit sponsors, all speakers and delegates who joined us, both in Croke Park, Dublin and virtually, and made the summit a huge success.

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Jemima Jowett-Ive, Shell Energy Europe, with Ross McNally and Peter Rodgers, ERM.

Bob Hanna, Smart Grid Ireland with Derek Russell, Energia and Keelin O’Brien, O’Brien Energy Consulting Ltd.

Chloe Kinsella, Cenergise with Richard Walshe, ART Generation.

Aoife Foley, Davy and Ciara Lambe, Arup with Ray Langton and Ciaran Byrne, Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland.

Tony Lynch, Gas Networks Ireland speaks with attendees at the Gas Networks Ireland exhibition stand.

Speakers: Ellen Diskin, ESB Networks; Niall Goodwin, Wind Energy Ireland; Siobhán McHugh, The Demand Response Association of Ireland and Bobby Smith, Energy Storage Ireland.

Digital Security. Progress. Protected.

Fintech report

Sponsored by

fintech report

Minister of State Seán Fleming TD: Ireland for Finance Ireland for Finance is the whole-of-government strategy to develop the international financial services sector in the export of financial services products, writes Minister of State with responsibility for Financial Services Seán Fleming TD. The strategy is a key element of the long-standing government commitment to enhance Ireland’s economic standing as a place of talent, innovation, and experience in international financial services.

The industry has gone from strength to strength, through a dedicated partnership approach between the public and the private sector. This dates back to the origination of the International Financial Services Centre in the late 1980s.

Since then the sector has developed into an important pillar of the Irish economy. Direct employment in the portfolio of firms in international financial services from both the Industrial Development Agency (IDA)

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and Enterprise Ireland stands at a record 52,000 people. Significantly, 30 per cent of these jobs are outside of Dublin. This sector contributes substantially through payroll taxes, VAT, and corporation tax to services in Ireland.

When combined with the many indirect jobs in the provision of professional services that the international financial services sector supports, the levels of opportunity for people that the industry is creating has never been greater.

Ireland is a specialist centre for international financial services, one with deep industry expertise in defined areas, such as investment funds, asset administration, aircraft leasing, fintech and payments.

Over time the sector has also proven itself resilient over a number of different testing economic cycles. While Brexit has been a significant challenge on many fronts for Ireland, it has proven to be a benefit to Ireland in international financial services. Many firms chose Ireland more so than any other destination in the EU to relocate from the UK to maintain access to the single market.

This has broadened the reach of the already strong investment funds sector and has made new opportunities possible for large cross border international banking and insurance firms.

The attraction of Ireland for those firms is closely linked to the strong enterprise

Credit: Department of Finance.

Digital Security. Progress. Protected. platform focused on exports and innovation, coupled with our membership of the EU and a strong independent regulator. In addition to these factors, many firms welcomed the partnership model behind Ireland for Finance and recognised the forwardlooking ambition of the Government to develop the international financial services here.

The impact of technology on the global economy and financial services became particularly evident during the pandemic. The capacity of innovation developed over many years delivered a seamless move to remote working and new ways of using financial products that were unimaginable in the past.

Fintech The levels of investment in fintech from venture capital and other investors have seen significant increases as both new entrants and the incumbents look to capture the opportunities that digital technologies present.

Ireland is particularly well placed to benefit from this digital transformation in financial services as a well-developed financial centre with an established technology sector featuring the leading names from around the world.

In the area of payments, often cited as the gateway of fintech, Ireland has already achieved a strong leadership position as a location for innovative companies like Fexco, Stripe and Mastercard who all have large development teams operating here.

The digital finance ecosystem has also expanded in recent years to include many of the institutional financial services providers that have chosen Ireland to help them develop their fintech capability. Ireland is being recognised for the unique blend of experience that we have in technology and finance.

fintech report

To enhance and extend the effectiveness of the Government’s approach to international financial services, I have begun a focused update of the Ireland for Finance strategy. The updated strategy will focus on delivering a more globally digitally enabled and decarbonised society. This will create a new set of opportunities for the international financial services industry here. The updated strategy will be published in the middle of this year.

Seán Fleming TD at the Q1 Joint Committee Ireland for Finance meeting attended by Commissioner Mairead McGuinness.

“In the area of payments, often cited as the gateway of fintech, Ireland has already achieved a strong leadership position.”

Minister of State with responsibility for Financial Services Seán Fleming TD Increasingly technology is also playing a significant role in how firms meet the demands of both regulators and consumers to explain how they address environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.

The core purpose of the Ireland for

Compliance with the ambitious targets that Ireland, the EU and the United Nations have set to take action on climate change require greater levels of disclosure around the activities of all organisations and financial services firms.

this pipeline of diverse talent we are

Harnessing the potential of ESG data can help contribute towards sustainability goals. As part of the Government’s Sustainable Finance Roadmap we are creating a dedicated framework to capitalise on this opportunity.

to build on the successes we have

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the executives from both the public and the private sector, Ireland is in a strong position to respond to the opportunities before us in international financial services.

Finance strategy is to create choices for people in their careers and to encourage more people from more diverse backgrounds to participate in the opportunities out there. To achieve working in tandem with the Department of Higher Education, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland.

The update of the Ireland for Finance strategy that we are carrying out seeks achieved to date and make the most of the exciting changes taking place in digital and sustainable finance.

While there are challenges that the sector must address, not least the current geopolitical uncertainty, the combination of partnership and innovation will be at the heart of the next phase of the Government’s approach to international financial services.

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fintech report

Financial industry cybersecurity risks are increasing As one of the most prominent targets of cybercriminals, fintech has always been probably the most cybersecurity-conscious sector, subject to advanced regulation and with a solid backing of security professionals. ESET Ireland takes a look at a few aspects of fintech cybersecurity.

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Just before the GDPR regulation was adopted, Adrian Mullett, head of technology sector for Bank of Ireland told Silicon Republic: “Ireland has a strong cohort of companies active in security. But what you are seeing now are massive changes in regulation compliance, and this is where fintech and security work hand in hand… We are seeing a move towards managed security providers consolidating their tech with fintech and regtech to meet

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compliance needs of various organisations. GDPR is merely a symptom of that as well as being a driver in and of itself.”

The EU Directive on the Security of Network and Information Systems, which Ireland has adopted includes proportionate technical and organisational measures, such as the security of systems and facilities, incident handling, business continuity management, monitoring, auditing and

Digital Security. Progress. Protected.

testing and compliance with international standards.

Verizon’s 2020 Data Breach Investigations Report estimates that 63 per cent of attacks carried out against financial institutions are done by external threat actors motivated by monetary gain. Organisations can expect that cybercriminals employ credential-stuffing attacks, social engineering attacks, fraud, DDoS attacks, and malware. The Covid-19 pandemic has increased the risk,

business continuity plan in place in case a cyberattack occurs. A proper plan should always include data backups and, if budgeting allows it, a whole backup infrastructure; critical especially if a ransomware attack occurs.” particularly because many companies were forced to shift to working remotely, a move that introduces its own set of challenges. Since the shift came suddenly, companies may not have had enough time to properly institute cybersecurity policies that would deal with possible weak points due to employees working from home.

Employees are the cornerstones of any organisation, but, as the age-old adage goes, “to err is human”. The IBM report found that human error is one of the three major root causes of data breaches, accounting for 23 per cent of breaches. To mitigate the chances of any of these scenarios happening, companies should provide proper cybersecurity training to their employees. Exercises where employees are taught how to spot phishing or social engineering attempts should be conducted routinely.

Every company should have a business continuity plan in place in case a cyberattack occurs. A proper plan should always include data backups and, if budgeting allows it, a whole backup infrastructure; critical especially if a ransomware attack occurs. For the backups to be effective, they must be both updated regularly and tested frequently to ensure that they are operating properly. While financial organisations remain lucrative targets for most cybercriminals, they can still ramp up their defences enough to mitigate the possibility of falling victim to most

threats. However, to build up sufficiently strong defence mechanisms, companies need to take a holistic and balanced approach, which consists of investing both in employee training and adequate technological solutions and business continuity plans.

Any combination of the aforementioned factors could spell a perfect storm for most organisations when faced with a cyberattack. On the bright side, financial services companies are taking cybersecurity concerns seriously on the highest level. Global management consulting firm McKinsey found that 95 per cent of the board committees that they surveyed say they discuss cyberrisks and tech risks at least four times a year. It’s worth noting, however, that building awareness in top management needs to go hand in hand with investing adequate sums in cybersecurity solutions and training personnel to the best possible standards.

T: 053 914 6600 E: info@eset.ie W: www.eset.ie

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A key area that is preventing companies from tackling cyberthreats head-on is that they have insufficient budgets allocated to cybersecurity. According to a survey conducted by consulting firm Ernst and Young, 87 per cent of surveyed organisations said that they did not have a sufficient budget to achieve the levels of cybersecurity and resilience they were aiming for. The lack of resources means that companies cannot hire enough cybersecurity talent or institute technical measures they need to be resilient when facing off against various cyber threats. Some organisations underestimate the value of cybersecurity for their business and instead opt to invest in other aspects they deem more worthwhile, such as financing expansions or developing new products. They could argue that the costs outweigh the benefits, such as the cost of cybersecurity measures outweighing potential losses from a data breach.

“Every company should have a

fintech report

But, a few year later, the seriousness of the threat cybercrime poses to businesses offering financial services is reflected in the cost of a data breach in the financial industry. According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach 2020 report, the average cost of a data breach in the financial services sector was US$5.85 million compared to an average of US$3.86 million. The financial sector is an attractive target for bad actors, especially due to the type and amount of information it collects from its customers and partners. In the event of a successful breach, the data can be used for identity fraud or sold on dark web marketplaces, which can lead to reputational damage to the breached entity as well as possible reputational and monetary damages to the customers affected.

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fintech report

A guide to fintech Fintech refers to any business that uses technology to enhance or automate financial services and processes; as this becomes a mainstay in the global economy, eolas brings you a guide to understanding the applications that define it.

Digital lending Digital lending is a complex ecosystem in which non-traditional loan providers are leveraging technology in an attempt to overtake traditional lending sources such as retail banks. While traditional types of lending such as mortgage lending are manual and paper-based, technologies such as robotic process automation (RPA), optical character recognition (OCR), automated document recognition (ADR), workflow, and machine learning are now all being utilised in the management of application processes.

Digital lending allows financial institutions to boost productivity and loan profits while providing speedier service at the point-of-sale.

The ease with which applications under this model can both be submitted and managed has

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seen e-commerce payment firms such as Stripe move into the lending sector, while global banks such as ING and BBVA Compass have partnered with tech firms such as Kabbage and OnDeck respectively.

Faced with more integrated lending competition, banks are now said to be delving deeper into customers’ life experience in order to protect their market share, seeking to support broader life goals rather than the core types of loan such as car loans, mortgages, etc. Banks are now offering financial support to help customers insure, renovate, and furnish their new homes, all integrated into their platform.

Digital Security. Progress. Protected.

Digital payments Since the production of the first plastic card for

vendors that enables them to download the

electronic payments in 1959 by American

software, install the settings and start using

Express and the advent of ATMs in the 1960s,

their iPhone as a payment receiving device.

migrating into the digital and online space to the point where today, the vast majority of transactions occur online and digitally, from ewallets and blockchain to contactless payments on credit networks.

fintech report

financial transactions have slowly been

Tap to Pay is made possible through near-field communication (NFC), a technology that allows short-range wireless connectivity between two NFC-enabled devices at a distance of 4cm or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be used to

Mobile technology now means that

bootstrap more capable wireless connections.

smartphones have become vessels for payment,

Due to the ease with which these technologies

replacing plastic, chip and pin cards; this has in

are now accessed, use of digital wallets has

turn meant that mobile technology companies

seen a rise, jumping to 27 per cent of

enable businesses to simplify their payment

consumers in the US in 2020, up from 22 per

methods. For example, Apple has recently

cent in 2019.

launched Tap to Pay, a new streamlined contactless payment service for business

Digital wealth management Digital wealth management is an integrated

portfolios often operate so-called stablecoin

system that utilises digital tools in order to

strategies. A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency that

allow users to manage a wide range of savings

is pegged to a fiat currency, such as the USD

and investment products, such as stocks,

Coin or USD Tether, both of which are pegged

exchange-traded funds (EFTs), and digital

to the US dollar.

assets such as cryptocurrencies. A key aspect that separates digital wealth management platforms is their lack of barriers to entry when compared to traditional savings and investment methods, with platforms such as Scalable Capital allowing customers to start at just €1, free of order fees. Since EFTs are often available to clients of a certain country/continent only, digital wealth managers often offer country- or region-specific propositions to clients.

Digital wealth management solutions allow clients to process their entire portfolios through one app or website, with this streamlined process typically only requiring the answering of questions on the client’s part in order to build a profile around their needs. These platforms typically offer a variety of options, from risk-averse to risk-heavy; risk-averse

Digital wealth management is now also being embraced by more traditional players in the wealth management sphere. For example, the asset management firm Pantera Capital has been noted for its embrace of fintech, having launched the first investment fund focused on Bitcoin in the United States in 2013. The firm requires a minimum investment of $100,000 for its investment funds and now manages over $700 million in digital assets spread across five different cryptocurrencies.

Various market funds provide exposure to all areas of the cryptocurrency sphere, from illiquid venture capital assets to liquid digital assets such as Bitcoin. These funds are designed to protect investors against the unpredictability of assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum by focusing on downside protection.

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fintech report

Digital Security. Progress. Protected.

Blockchain and cryptocurrencies The blockchain is a distributed database that is

issued by any central authority, meaning that

shared among the nodes of a computer

they are theoretically immune to government

network. In its role as a database, it stores

interference or manipulation, although some

information electronically in a digital format.

states such as China have begun wading into

While often mistaken for a cryptocurrency itself,

the market with state-backed cryptocurrencies

the blockchain’s role in this sphere is to act as a

such as the digital yuan.

ledger, maintaining a secure and decentralised record of transactions for systems such as Bitcoin. What distinguishes the blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a trusted third party.

cheaper and faster money transfers, with the decentralised systems meaning that collapses do not come from a single point of failure. The disadvantages of cryptocurrencies include their price volatility – for example, the value of

A blockchain collects information together in

Bitcoin, the highest profile of cryptocurrencies,

groups, known as blocks. These blocks have

has, at the time of writing, fallen 29.7 per cent

defined storage capacities and are closed and

in the past six months, risen 12.8 per cent in

linked to the previously filled block once full,

the last three months, and fallen 12.86 per cent

forming the chain that then becomes known as

in the last month – high energy consumption

the blockchain. New information that is collated

for mining activities, and prevalent use in

following the addition of a block to the chain is

criminal activities due to their decentralised and

compiled into a new block, which is then added

anonymised nature.

to the chain once full. This chain structure means that the blockchain is an irreversible timeline of data when it is implemented in a decentralised nature. Once a block is filled, it is given an exact time and date stamp and added to the chain as part of the timeline, rendering editing impossible.

Cryptocurrencies can be mined or purchased from cryptocurrency exchanges, although not all ecommerce sites will allow the use of cryptocurrencies for purchasing goods.

Cryptocurrencies are, in fact, as yet still rare in retail transactions, although notable companies such as Tesla have accepted Bitcoin as payment

The blockchain enables cryptocurrency

and then reversed this policy. They have since

transactions and maintains a decentralised

accepted the so-called ‘meme-coin’ Dogecoin,

ledger of them. A cryptocurrency at its most

but also reversed this policy soon after.

basic level is a digital or virtual currency that is

However, the skyrocketing value of

secured by cryptography, making it almost

cryptocurrencies has made them popular as

impossible to counterfeit or double spend.

trading instruments and as a vehicle for

Cryptocurrencies are typically decentralised

financial speculation.

networks based on the blockchain that are not

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The advantages of cryptocurrencies include

The digital transformation of finance

A decade ago, most people would not have believed that we would be able to make payments from our phones, send a friend money to split a bill from our mobile phone contact list, or make investments using our thumb to confirm a trade. So far, the use of robotics, AI and machine learning are less widespread in the mainstream Irish financial sector.

Regulators have sought to use a number of tools to achieve this. Various consumer/investor protection rules have been reviewed and updated to ensure they remain fit for purpose in the digital age while also ensuring an option for customers to access paper terms and conditions, statements etc., for those who need them. Clear disclosures and warnings help to educate investors.

One example is the disclosures

For virtual assets, the initial focus of policymakers was to ensure that they are not used to launder money or finance terrorism by introducing a virtual asset service provider regime to regulate providers in the EU from a fitness and probity and anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism perspective. EU regulators continue to issue warnings about the risks of retail investors investing in cryptos while EU policymakers are developing an EU-wide framework for regulating markets in crypto assets (which are not already captured within the scope of existing financial services legislation), "MiCA", with a target date of 2024.

Despite the progress, there is still more to do, such as implementing an integrated and reliable system for faster payments, developing better ways for customers to aggregate their financial products, and adapting regulatory frameworks to support financial inclusion. I look forward to seeing what financial services will look like in another 10 years’ time.

T: +353 87 181 1746 / +353 1 619 2125 E: lorna.smith@maples.com W: www.maples.com Maples and Calder (Ireland) LLP 75 St. Stephen's Green Dublin 2, D02 PR50, Ireland

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A key part to any successful transformation is ensuring that it remains inclusive and those who may not have access or the ability to use technologies do not get left behind. So how do we balance innovation with inclusion, consumer protection and ensuring the stability of the financial system?

required in the new crowdfunding regime.

fintech report

Over the last decade, there has been major disruption to how we access and use financial services and products, globally and in Ireland, writes Lorna Smith.

Partner, Financial Services Regulatory at the Maples Group.

The pandemic highlighted operational risk and the importance of business continuity. Providers of financial services and products rely on a web of third parties to deliver that product or service to its customers. Oversight and management of outsourcing, scenario testing of operational risks and robust business continuity arrangements all help to protect customers.

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fintech report

Opportunities and challenges posed by fintech in Ireland Fintech, as a term of art, describes the impact of digital technology on financial services. It is an important issue for the next phase of development of the Irish economy and one that the Department of Finance takes very seriously. Karen Cullen, Head of International Financial Services, Risk and Compliance Unit, Department of Finance and Secretary to the Ireland for Finance Committee, writes.

The role that technology plays in all our lives came into sharp relief during the pandemic, and many commentators refer to 2020 as a digital threshold year, marking a shift to a new era. It was also the year when we in the Department of Finance established the Fintech Steering Group, under the Ireland for Finance strategy, as our considered response to this multidimensional policy issue.

As a relatively new international financial services centre, Ireland has always had technology as a crucial feature of its development. Without the advances in telecoms in the 1980s it would not have been possible to attract the new investments that have grown into the vibrant financial services sector in Ireland that we enjoy today. Through my role as the secretary to the dedicated Government strategy to develop international financial services, Ireland for Finance, I have seen first-hand, just how critical fintech has become. It is an opportunity we have focused on for some time and one that has accelerated as an increasingly important driver of growth for people and organisations in the public and the private sector.

It is a critical factor behind the recent investments from both indigenous Irish firms that are fostered by Enterprise Ireland and the multinationals whose operations here are supported by IDA Ireland. It is also a trend that is common across all sectors, banking, insurance, and investment management and is of particular importance in the payments sector where Ireland has established a leadership position.

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As a phenomenon, it also brings its own challenges, as technologies are developing at a pace that is several orders of magnitude faster than the speed at which regulation evolves. With the move to online

Digital Security. Progress. Protected.

“To deliver on our ambitions for fintech, and to address the challenges it brings fintech report

enterprise, questions are being asked of what will happen to cash in the architecture of the global banking system of the future and what function digital assets will perform in financial intermediation. The policy choices we make in financial services will need to balance the protection of consumers and enterprise in a way that fosters the innovation that is driving the efficiencies that fintech offers.

while capitalising on the opportunities, the Department of Finance is focusing on what has worked well for us in the past.”

For industry, fintech is increasing what is already a complex business and the Karen Cullen, Head of International Financial Services, Risk and introduction of more technology is making greater demands of the Compliance Unit, Department of Finance management teams of the existing regulated firms. At the same time for new entrants the compliance requirements necessary for consumer protection and financial stability are a new challenge for them to navigate.

The focus of the Fintech Steering Group, which was initially comprised of Principal Officers from across all divisions of the Department of Finance, was to: •

coordinate the Department’s policy positions for fintech;

•

collaborate with the wider public sector, regulators, and industry;

•

contribute to the EU policy debate on digital finance; and

•

communicate with the global fintech ecosystem on the full range of government supports for firms and updating them on regulatory developments.

The European dimension of fintech is an important element for Ireland as the technologies being deployed in financial services require a scale that exceeds our population. With our access to the single market and the European Commission’s focus on digital finance, we are uniquely positioned as an English speaking international financial services centre. We also have the added benefit of a common law legal system and a strong technology sector that includes the leading global software firms.

Under the 2022 Ireland for Finance Action Plan, we are widening the steering group to provide access to different perspectives on the policy questions we face in digital finance. By expanding the group, to include more voices from outside the public sector, we are offering stakeholders an opportunity to constructively shape the landscape of fintech in Ireland. In doing so we are extending our reach, drawing on all of our talents as a jurisdiction and maximising the networking capability that Ireland enjoys both at home and abroad.

The steering group is a valuable platform for us to collectively shape the direction of fintech and the role that we want it to play as a positive force in the Irish economy, facilitating innovation and supporting citizens and businesses. The approach is consultative and careful while being active and agile at the same time, as we look to capitalise on the conditions that we have created in our international financial services sector, where employment is at a record high.

Our aim in developing and enhancing the Fintech Steering Group is to develop pragmatic policies that address the challenges we face today while creating a robust platform for positive action in the future.

This requires us to be in a position to learn and lead at the same time as we look to make possible a reimagined financial services sector, one with ever closer links to science and technology.

To deliver on our ambitions for fintech, and to address the challenges it brings while capitalising on the opportunities, the Department of Finance is focusing on what has worked well for us in the past. We have put partnership with industry and collaboration at the heart of the process with a commitment to develop a positive future of fintech in Ireland which creates opportunities while protecting people and businesses.

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fintech report

Ireland for Finance 2022 action plan published The Department of Finance has published its 2022 action plan for the implementation of the Ireland for Finance strategy, the fourth of its kind since the publication of the strategy in 2019. The strategy aims to develop Ireland’s international financial services sector up to 2025.

2022’s action plan seeks to address five key themes: sustainable finance; fintech and digital finance; diversity and talent; regionalisation and promotion; and operating environment. Under sustainable finance, the priority is said to be the implementation of the Sustainable Finance Roadmap, published by Sustainable Finance Ireland in October 2021.

Actions from the roadmap that are to be undertaken as part of the action plan include: the establishment of an international sustainable finance centre of excellence; the acceleration of access to sustainable finance knowledge and skills; the development of a sustainable fintech strategy; the establishment of a public-private climate and sustainable finance group; and the assessment of the viability of a climate funding platform.

Five measures are given priority status in the fintech and digital finance sector.

These include the implementation of the second phase of the Department of 78

Finance’s Fintech Steering Group and the development of education resources in order to support people engaging with fintech. A not-for-profit organisation, the InsurTech hub, will be funded along with a website to support the development of insurance technology services, and two programmes of activity will be delivered, to support native fintech companies’ growth in international markets and to raise global visibility of Ireland as a fintech hub.

continued promotion of the European Financial Forum, led by IDA Ireland and the Department of Finance. Lastly, in order to improve the operating environment, the Department will continue its engagement at the European level to assess proposed directives and regulations, liaise with other government departments and offices, and negotiate and liaise with the finance departments of other member states to advance and protect Ireland’s interests.

In order to guarantee the creation of new jobs in the sector, the Government pledges to launch the Women in Finance Charter under the theme of diversity and talent. It will also complete the study commissioned by the Expert Group on Future Skill Needs on the international financial services sector and review the International Financial Services apprenticeship programme.

In his foreword to the action plan, Minister of State with responsibly for Financial Services, Credit Unions and Insurance Seán Fleming TD states that on top of these key themes, fintech is a priority for the plan: “Ireland is strongly placed to benefit from strong bases in both the finance sector and the technology sector in our economy. Our fintech sector is broad, including not only new so-called ‘disruptive’ start-ups but many financial services firms that are highly ‘tech enabled’.”

The Government aims to achieve further regionalisation and promotion of Ireland as a location for industry through

fintech report

The technologies shaping the future of fintech As fintech further embeds itself in life and industry, eolas examines the technologies that will both enable and define the sector over the coming decade.

Artificial intelligence

Blockchain

It is estimated that AI can generate up to $1 trillion additional value for the global banking industry per annum. Automatic factor discovery is expected to become more prevalent in financial services as a means of modelling, with knowledge graphs and graph computing also expected to play a significant role. These elements will build associations and identify patterns across complex financial networks and disparate data sources, vastly affecting the sector in the years to come.

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) allows the recording and sharing of data across multiple stores; some DLTs utilise blockchain technology to store and transmit data. DLTs are expected to underpin ecosystem financing by storing transactions in multiple places at one time.

Cloud computing

Internet of Things

McKinsey and Company research states that by 2030, cloud technology will account for earnings before tax, interest, depreciation and amortisation of over $1 trillion across the top 500 global companies. They predict that banks will recognise “the potential to adopt cloud-based microservice architecture at scale in the next few years, where application programming interfaces (APIs) unlock machine- to-machine communication and allow services to scale independently without needing to enlarge the coding base of the overall offering”.

As environmental governance considerations govern financial institutions more and more, carbon trading is predicted to be increasingly indexed to IoT measurements, while insurers are increasingly using IoT to determine risk, improve customer engagement, and accelerate and simplify the underwriting and claims process. In banking, IoT-based inventory and property financing are expected to refine risk management by ensuring that accounting records match real-world transactions.

A Bank for International Settlements 2021 survey found that 60 per cent of central banks are testing or studying central bank digital currencies; China, for example, has begun trial on a digital currency that is based on a permissioned DLT.

Open source and software-as-a-service Open source software, serverless architecture and SaaS have all become key components in the launching of new fintech ventures.

SaaS allows companies to use software as needed, with no obligation to own or maintain it; serverless architecture removes the need for companies to run their own servers and also reduces costs as charges for executed software code are not incurred as often; and open source allows companies to rapidly scale up using code that is free of charge.

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Digital Security. Progress. Protected.

fintech report

Ireland falls one place in global fintech rankings Ireland fell to 18th in Findexable’s 2021 Global Fintech Rankings, making it 10th in Europe. There was a new entry for Cork into the rankings, a rise in the rankings for Belfast, but falls for both Dublin and Galway.

With the State as a whole falling one place to 18th in the annual rankings, the capital suffered a much worse fall, from 26th to 50th in the space of a year, placing it behind 14 other European cities as diverse as London, Stockholm, Vilnius, and Helsinki. The entrance of Cork is, however, some good news for the State. The southwestern city entered the rankings at 203rd, surrounded by cities such as Colorado Springs, Nicosia, Cologne, and Tbilisi.

As well as ranking 203rd in the world, Cork now ranks 82nd in Europe and was one of 52 new entrants into the rankings for the year 2021.

Belfast rose to 134th in the world, climbing 51 places in a progressive year that saw it take 54th place in Europe.

Galway, much like Dublin, also suffered a fall down the rankings, dropping 37 places down to 240th in the world and 90th in Europe, surrounded by cities such as Yerevan, Harju, and Chisinau.

The rankings are calculated by Findexable via a proprietary algorithm

using quantifiable data such as the quantity of privately owned fintech companies, the quality of said companies, and the local business environment. Quantity, the report says, is “not just about innovating businesses”, but also “needs supporting organisations providing facilities to help the flow of connections and capital across the marketplace”.

Quality is most affected by fintech ‘unicorns’, who “impact the development and success of the wider ecosystem by inspiring other fintech innovators and encouraging more venture capital to flow”. Key to the environment in which these companies operate are “large scale fintech gatherings, accelerator and innovation programmes and other events”.

The rankings, perhaps unsurprisingly, show little change at the top, with a top three of San Francisco Bay Area, London, and New York City, unchanged from 2020. It is equally unsurprising then that the United States and United

Kingdom would place first and second respectively in the country rankings. It is, of course, unlikely that Ireland will ever have the financial muscle to compete with either of the North Atlantic powerhouses, but inspiration could perhaps be taken from countries of similar size.

Lithuania, with a population just over half the size of the Republic of Ireland’s, ranks 10th in the rankings, a relative disappointment for the eastern European country given that this is the result of a six-place drop. Estonia, with a population less than half that of Lithuania, ranks 11th. Uruguay, with its population of just under 3.5 million, is one the countries pushing Ireland down the rankings, having risen 46 places to take 17th, the spot that Ireland had occupied in 2020.

The rankings make for clear reading for those invested in turning Ireland into a fintech hub: while good work is being done, there is certainly room for relative improvement.

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®

Transport Ireland 2022 Ireland’s major annual transport conference

Thursday 16th June 2022 • Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Dublin Transport Ireland®, now in its fifteenth year, has firmly established itself as the annual conference event for the transport sector in Ireland. The 2022 conference, back in-person, will bring together all the key players from across Ireland, north and south, to focus on the important issues facing transport policymakers and senior managers in the sector. The Covid crisis has prompted policy makers to look at investment plans and the shape of the transport landscape to serve us in the years to come. Investment in transport infrastructure and networks remains a key priority.

Speakers confirmed include:

Key issues to be examined:

Eamon Ryan TD

Anne Graham

Minister for Transport

Chief Executive National Transport Authority

Peter Walsh

Aoife O’Grady

Chief Executive

Principal Officer, Climate

Transport

Delivery

Infrastructure Ireland

Department of Transport

Stephen Kent

Jim Meade

Chief Executive

Chief Executive

Bus Éireann

Irish Rail

4

Aleksandra Klenke

Derval Cummins

4

Sustainable and

Director and European Advisory

Intelligent Transport, DG

Leader, Transportation

Move, European

Consulting

Commission

AECOM

Stuart Greig

Hilda Rømer Christensen

Director of Low Carbon

Associate Professor, University

Economy

of Copenhagen and Scientific

Transport Scotland

Co-ordinator, TInnGO

In association with

To register...

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4 4 4 4 4

4 4 4 4 4

Sponsored by

By telephone +353 (0)1 661 3755

Online www.transportireland.ie

Transport policies and priorities Post-Covid recovery and the funding and financing of public transport Decarbonising transport on the road to net zero Transport infrastructure to support sustainable economic growth Intelligent transport and transforming mobility Gender and diversity sensitive smart mobility The future of cities: How people move in a smart city Achieving zero emissions urban freight Sustainable urban mobility Technology to transform how we move Enabling travel behaviour change Mobility trends for 2022

An eolas event

Full programme available online

Digital government report

Sponsored by

Minister of State Ossian Smyth TD: Connecting Government 2030 launched I was delighted to launch digital government report

Connecting Government 2030: A Digital and ICT Strategy for Ireland’s Public Service in March 2022, setting out our ambition for digitalisation of public services over the coming years, writes Minister of State with responsibility for eGovernment Ossian Smyth TD. We want to make it just as easy to get your government services online as it is to shop online. You can already apply for many services online, for example: a tax refund or a welfare payment online. It is great that you can get a new passport or a driver's license without having to wait in a queue at an office counter.

We have delivered well against our expectations and have put in place the foundations of a strong digital government ecosystem. I acknowledge the work of our civil and public service for the progress to date. However, while there are many areas of excellence, we want to see ease of access to government services increase and greater integration across all public services. Connecting Government 2030 will help us achieve this ambition.

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Connecting Government 2030 embodies a digital by default approach in delivering public services. Working with stakeholders and the public, we will build towards 90 per cent online uptake of key public services in line with the targets set by the EU’s Digital Decade. At the same time, of course, we will improve the offline experience for those who are unable to access services digitally.

Connecting Government 2030 addresses the digitalisation of public services dimension of the new national digital strategy, Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework. It also aligns with the targets set out in Civil Service Renewal 2030.

The digital transformation of government means redesigning and rebuilding government processes and services and using digitalisation and data to provide an integrated experience and service for our people, for businesses, for policymakers and for service providers.

In order to achieve more user-focused outcomes, digitalisation, supported by ICT, will be an integral part of policymaking and public service design processes from the outset, My colleague in government, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath TD, acknowledged this in Budget 2022. He remarked that the allocations announced “must be matched by a commitment to deliver value for money across all areas of government. This will mean further embedding digitisation and new ways of working across our public services”.

The well-established benefits of the digital transformation of public services for both individuals and businesses include efficiency, transparency, trust, and accessibility. Moreover, we know that a strong government digital performance supports and draws strength from a strong digital economy in Ireland.

Connecting Government 2030 identifies six priority action areas.

1

A human-driven digital experience: Understanding our users and their needs is key to delivering better services.

2

Harnessing data effectively: Improving public services by implementing structures to deliver more and better re-use of data, respecting privacy, and data protection.

3

Government as a platform: Driving service simplification through an ecosystem of standards, resources and tools, including application of the ‘onceonly’ principle.

4

Evolving through innovation:

Challenging ourselves to look afresh at solving difficult problems to build innovative solutions putting our users at the centre.

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embodies a digital by default

Strengthening digital skills: Strengthening and developing new capabilities and skills, which are able to sustain a digital public service culture.

approach in delivering public

Focusing on governance and leadership: Putting in place governance structures to drive digital transformation across government.

services.”

Minister of State with responsibility for eGovernment Ossian Smyth TD

The following core design principles will drive those six priority action areas: •

•

•

•

Digital by default and cloud-first: Building towards the targets for 2030 that 90 per cent of applicable services are consumed online and being more proactive and progressive in embracing cloud.

All-of-government approach: Ensuring an integrated and richer experience for individuals and businesses and that digital considerations are embedded in policy processes.

New ways of working: Enabling working environments that empower our people to give of their best, promoting the sharing of ideas, designs, and innovations.

Privacy-driven and secure by design: Design and build systems that are aligned with best practice in security and cyber defence.

The Connecting Government 2030 Strategy will help provide for our people with: •

better access to trusted, high quality digital government services;

•

services delivered in an equitable, inclusive, and sustainable manner with enhanced service to those needing assistance;

•

secure and transparent reuse of personal data; and

•

opportunities to actively contribute to the co-creation of government services.

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“Connecting Government 2030

For businesses, the Strategy will help to deliver: •

better access to integrated digital government services;

•

reduced administrative overheads;

•

GovTech opportunities; and

•

greater openness and enhanced engagement with government.

For the public servants developing and delivering public services, the strategy will: •

support the effective use of data to plan and deliver all government services;

•

strengthen capabilities and skills;

•

support an ecosystem of common digital building blocks/tools; and

•

provide a strong governance framework.

Connecting Government 2030 recognises and reflects the ambition of the European Green Deal by promoting the use of environmentally friendly technologies and boosting the efficient use of resources by moving to a clean circular economy.

Consequently, we will continuously improve our use of sustainable ICT, including improved circular product cycles. We will work to ensure ICT equipment and services implemented by

government become fully circular, i.e. not just energy efficient in design, but also designed to last longer, to be properly maintained, to contain recycled material, and to be easily dismantled and recycled.

A key element of this ambition is the development of the first government data centre, which will be innovative in its green design, delivery, and sustainability credentials. The new data centre and specifically the cloudorientated infrastructure design within it will provide the pathway to close down inefficient computer rooms and small data centres, thus creating a more energy-efficient hosting capability across the public service. The government data centre will also be central to our wider data collection and storage plans, including edge computing.

The coming years will be about building upon our strong foundations and creating a world-leading digital government service. I look forward to the implementation of Connecting Government 2030: A Digital and ICT Strategy for Ireland’s Public Service. It will take an all-of-government effort to deliver its ambitious outcomes. But I am confident that Connecting Government 2030 will greatly improve the services we deliver to our people and to business and contribute to the Government’s overall objectives for sustainability.

Access Connecting Government 2030 on gov.ie 85

digital government report

Building strong partnership ecosystems to drive digital transformation within government services realising the vision and ambition of this framework and driving a step-change in how people, businesses, and policy makers interact.

Vodafone have been privileged to partner with government over recent years on the delivery of digital infrastructure and services with integrated next generation fixed and mobile solutions, cloud based platforms, IOT and edge computing and we look forward to continue the journey to support the digital transformation of Ireland’s government services. This digital transformation was accelerated exponentially over the last couple of years where public sector bodies were required to adopt new solutions and ways of working almost overnight to continue to deliver key services to citizens.

In the last two years, public sector bodies required a significant amount of effort and energy to adopt to new solutions and ways of working in realtime that has created a stimulus for greater technology adoption.

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Born out of necessity, we have seen a greater acceleration of digital transformation and innovation within public services during the Covid-19 pandemic than we have in the last decade, writes Shelah McMahon, Head of Public Sector Sales, Vodafone Ireland.

As we look forward, there is a need to better understand and evolve the ways in which technology can support the delivery and management of public services from health and education to the connected smart city in order to build a more resilient, equal, and prosperous society and economy.

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The recent launch of the Irish Government’s digital and ICT strategy Connecting Government 2030 is a clear signal of intent to harness the momentum achieved in the last two years to further digitise government services and there is a strong role for the telecommunications sector to play in

This was visible across all of government and particularly across education and healthcare. Centres of learning were faced with the prospect of educating thousands of students remotely, and a reliable connection was key to providing a seamless transition into online learning and put digitisation at the top of the agenda and indeed budget.

The HSE, confronted with an unparalleled surge of patient admissions, was tasked with facilitating efficient at-home working for a high percentage of its staff. Vodafone and Aruba partnered with HSE to deliver local area network and connectivity solutions.

Vodafone expedited a smooth transition to remote working with as little disruption as possible. Taking St James’s Hospital as an example, Remote Access Points (RAPs) were

deployed in the homes of key medical staff members, allowing them full, secure remote access to the Patient Archiving & Communication Service (PACS).

Looking forward, Vodafone is continuing to enable digital transition by focusing on platforms and strategic partnerships as the way forward for the business. A major part of the ongoing effort to better integrate our service portfolio (fixed and mobile connectivity, LAN, WLAN, WiFi, 5G, IoT and cloud) involves platforms with open interfaces and cloud-native support for emerging technologies such as managed 5G and IoT connectivity, IoT application enablement, and edge computing. This allows us to build new products and services and co-create end-to-end platforms with our customers and partners, moving very much from a connectivity provider to a technology provider.

This partnership ecosystem is crucial to support the digital transformation of public services.

For example, with a partnership spanning 22 years, Aruba and Vodafone are well placed to deliver complex LAN and WiFi solutions for public sector bodies across education, healthcare, local and government.

“In the last two years, public sector bodies required a significant amount of effort and energy to adopt to new solutions and ways of working in realtime that has created a stimulus for greater technology adoption.”

Northern Ireland Civil Service and working with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) to deliver the nationwide Government Cloud Network, built on Aruba switches and routers, wireless and network management software.

With a clear imperative for continued digitisation of government services in Ireland, now is the time to be bold and innovative in order to future-proof how we interact with citizens, businesses and communities.

Our aim is to support the digital transformation of government and to use digitalisation and data to provide an

integrated experience for our citizens, businesses and policy makers to embed longer-term societal resilience.

Vodafone is a purpose-led business just like the public sector. Our purpose has underpinned our commitments during Covid and Conti including prioritising mission critical communications; providing network capacity and services for critical government functions, especially hospitals and emergency calls; and improving the delivery of information to the public.

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Aside from the work with AIT, Vodafone have successfully delivered numerous other large and complex solutions in both the public and private sectors across the island of Ireland. Specific projects in public sector organisations include TU Dublin’s campus, encompassing secure student access and control; Limerick IT, Northern Regional College, and HSE National, including a major WiFi upgrade for St James’s Hospital.

digital government report

The Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT, now known as Technological University of the Shannon, Midlands Midwest) also assisted Ireland’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout by transforming the modernised athletics arena into a vaccination centre, delivering some 3,500 vaccines each day, seven days a week. The dedicated Vodafone/Aruba robust high-speed network provided the ideal IT infrastructure for vaccine rollout, enabling AIT to pivot its core function to a lifesaving inoculation centre with a catchment area spanning the Westmeath-Roscommon border.

W: www.vodafone.com

Additional projects include the entire 87

digital government report

Government CIO Barry Lowry: A digital leader Following the publication of Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework, the new national digital strategy, and Connecting Government 2030, the new Public Service digital and ICT strategy, Barry Lowry reflects on his time heading up the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) to date and discusses his continued ambition for Ireland’s digital journey.

Remarking on the distance already travelled on Ireland’s digital journey, Lowry emphasises the acceleration which took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. For instance, when the public service embarked upon the journey in 2015, Ireland’s government services portal, gov.ie, did not even exist; by 2020 it had 100 million visits. Likewise, in 2016 there were just over 8,000 verified MyGovID accounts; today, over 1.5 million Irish adults have verified accounts.

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“Now we have built the foundations for change, we must implement the big changes. Through the new strategy, we have a plan for how we are going to do that,” he observes.

“Big changes” Looking to the consolidation of progress that has been made, Lowry lists two “big changes” the OGCIO will prioritise.

Firstly, the delivery of an intuitive, userdriven digital government service whereby 90 per cent of applicable services are consumed online by 2030 and secondly, the launch of a new Life Events Portal.

“We define applicable services as those services which the public values most” the Government CIO explains, adding: “Over the coming weeks, we will consult the public on the services that are most important to them and their experience of these services.

“As we head into what is projected to be a financially constrained environment, we are responding to the public’s priorities, rather than pursuing a programme which attempts to change everything.”

Building on the success of gov.ie, then, the Life Events Portal is set to include births and deaths as the two primary life events, alongside returning to Ireland from abroad, and opening a business.

With births and deaths, there are multiple touchpoints with government, local government, the health authorities, and others.

As such, the Life Events Portal is intended to act as a single point of contact to enable individuals to provide

information once. After this, each arm of the Public Service will be informed when someone has been born or when someone has died, proactively using this data to align with the services that citizens are entitled to in such circumstances.

Harnessing digital While a draft National Digital Strategy was prepared in November 2019, ahead of the anticipated change in government, its publication was postponed. Amid prolonged government formation negotiations and the Covid-19 pandemic, a decision was made to reappraise the consultation data informing the strategy.

In February 2022, Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework was launched with the objective of establishing Ireland as “a digital leader at the heart of European and global digital developments” across four dimensions: digital transformation of business; digital infrastructure; skills; and digitalisation of public services.

“We agreed that we would totally align it with the EU Digital Compass which has four points: digital government; digital infrastructure; digital skills; and digital business.

“Once we had agreed to adopt that approach, it was relatively easy to take the EU targets and to adapt them for an Irish context. In most cases, we were more ambitious than the EU because the underlying desire has to be for Ireland to be a top-three digital nation.”

We also added an additional section focusing on digital policy and regulation, reflecting the importance of retaining our EU leadership in this space.

A top-three digital nation Outlining the tangible benefits of being a top-three digital nation within the EU, Lowry explains that digital government will be as easily accessible as any other form of service.

“We have demonstrated that we can do

digital government report

“The focus for the initial life events will be birth and bereavement because everyone understands why that is a pressure point, and the fact that, currently, for many, having to stand in an office to complete this process is a frustrating experience. Anything we can do to help people in that regard will be well received,” Lowry asserts.

“The underlying desire has to be for Ireland to be a top-three digital nation.”

Government CIO Barry Lowry this. Through the Covid Tracker App and the Digital Covid Certificate, we have demonstrated that we can build digital services every bit as well as the private sector. That is very encouraging. Now, we need to be as strong in proactive mode as we are in reactive mode.

“If we are reducing face-to-face services, we are also creating additional capacity in the Public Service and Civil Service. As such, we can aptitude test people who want to inhabit that space, before retraining them to undertake careers in data analytics, IT, and so on.

“This is one of many little steps, or enablers, that will show people that things are happening for the better. We are seeing this in government. The feedback that we are seeing on MyGovID is phenomenal.”

“We need an academy approach; we need to grow our own talent and there is talent there. There are many people who did not pursue a STEM career, but they have a real talent for business analysis or various IT roles,” Lowry explains.

Skills

Digital divide

Emphasising the “absolutely critical” role played by government in the acquisition of digital skills, Lowry highlights the commitment contained within EU’s Digital Decade 2030 that 80 per cent of adults will have at least basic digital skills by 2030. This target has been adopted in Harnessing Digital.

While the digital divide has been accentuated by the pandemic, the Government CIO insists that digital will deliver pervasive benefits across society.

“If 90 per cent of people are consuming their government services online, at a time and place of their choosing, we will unlock additional resources to provide a better service to the 10 per cent who continue to consume their services inperson.”

“That is something that we must pursue in schools,” he says, adding: “The new Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027 addresses this. It is also about trying to avail of every opportunity which provides people with access to basic skills.

Libraries are an obvious area. When we undertook the public consultation for the national digital strategy, what we observed was an eagerness among organisations such as local community groups and GAA clubs to get involved.”

In the context of ongoing talent management challenges and following the successful conclusion of the Government’s first iteration of the ICT Apprenticeship Scheme in conjunction with Fastrack to IT (FIT), a second scheme is set to launch in autumn 2022.

Improvements identified by both OGCIO and FIT, as well as the students themselves, will be included in the second iteration, while proof of concept work is also underway for a new retraining pilot scheme for government employees.

Simultaneously, a subcommittee established by the Sectoral Digital Leaders’ Groups is tasked with scrutinising inclusion and ensuring that public interest in assisted digital can be addressed. “That leaves a very small number who require support through face-to-face interaction. If we can free up resources to give them a better experience, then that is a benefit of digital,” he asserts.

Connecting Government 2030 Published in 2015, the Public Service ICT Strategy aimed to establish the foundations for a effectual digital government ecosystem. It was defined by five key strategic objectives: build to share; digital first; data as an enabler;

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improve governance; and increase capability.

digital government report

“Those were the foundations for what we did next,” Lowry explains, pointing to the progress made on gov.ie and MyGovID, the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019 and the Data Strategy, new governance structures and the standardisation of infrastructure and back-office tools across the Public Service.

Prepared by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and published in March 2022, Connecting Government 2030 is the successor to the 2015 strategy. The stated objective of the new digital and ICT strategy for Ireland’s public service is to “enhance Ireland’s reputation as a digital leader”.

Connecting Government 2030 aligns with the digitalisation of public services dimension of the national digital strategy, Harnessing Digital, as we well as the digital targets contained in Civil Service Renewal 2030.

“The Public Service ICT Strategy is a success story, and the next few years will be about becoming a leader in Europe. That is why we have called Connecting Government 2030 a digital and ICT strategy rather than simply an ICT strategy; it is very much about the customer experience and things that matter most to the person in the street,” Lowry outlines.

Governance While commending Ossian Smyth TD as Minister of State with responsibility for Public Procurement and eGovernment, Lowry maintains: “The biggest challenge that we have had – and one appointment has not fixed it – is that several government departments are involved in the digital agenda, and we do not have a Department of Digital Government as such.”

Acknowledging that the current scenario has associated strengths and weaknesses, he suggests that “where there are many moving parts, even with a strong centre, change will not be easy”.

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However, implementation of the new national digital strategy and EU obligations will be directed by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Recovery and Investment, which is chaired by the Tánaiste. It will also be supported by the Digital Issues Senior

“For the public to say it trusts what we are doing with its data is really important for us.”

Officials’ Group, chaired by the Department of the Taoiseach, and the Digital Single Market Group, chaired by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

Therefore, once we begin to open up MyGovID into healthcare and local government, we will get there. There is no doubt about it.”

From a governance perspective, this represents a major step change. “To now have the Tánaiste as the lead minister for digital is a really powerful statement. I think the Government has handled that bit particularly well. This very much aligns with where Europe is and helps position Ireland to be a leader,” Lowry says.

Reflections

2022 priorities For OCGIO, there are three immediate priorities for the year ahead. Firstly, 2022 will be defined by the alignment of all data sharing with the Data Sharing and Governance Act. “The Minister has set a target for December 2022, after which all data sharing will be under the auspices of the new Act. This is very powerful because it allows the Minister to direct data sharing as well as permit. That is a big challenge for this year,” Lowry remarks.

“A second ambition for 2022 is getting the first prototype Life Events Portal online and helping people to understand its rationale; and drive improvements to the most popular digital services. We will complete the consultation, establish a list of top 20 or top 30 events, and implement a timeframe to work through those.”

Thirdly, by 2023, Ireland must produce a national plan for the EU’s digital targets for 2030. Lowry is confident that this will happen. “Consider MyGovID, for example,” he begins, “Currently, about 38 per cent of the population have a verified account. One of the things we have to do is notify a version of MyGovID that meets the European standard, but the big focus will be reaching 80 per cent of eligible citizens using MyGovID by 2030.

“While getting from 38 per cent to 80 per cent is a challenge, Ireland is one of the fastest growing countries in the world.

Having led OGCIO since 2016, one of Lowry’s early ambitions was to build strong relationships between his office, the government departments, the sectors, academia, and industry. “If you talk to any of those groups, that objective has been achieved. We have built proactive relationships with each of those stakeholders and indeed the public. The brand is well known now and is often used in the Oireachtas and elsewhere,” he reflects.

For now, though, he believes that the preeminent obstacles to digital government are still investment orientated. Allied to this is the scale of legacy infrastructure. “If you take something like the concept of a register of names and addresses, it is not going to be easy to get people to stop relying on the ones that are inbuilt in their databases. We have a good workaround in the Single Customer View, but to effectively develop this is a massive and costly challenge. We may well have to be pragmatic about how we do some of those things because the key thing for us is customer experience,” he argues.

However, a recent OECD report, which determined that alongside Denmark, Ireland has one of the most trusted public services in the world, has buoyed Lowry and OGCIO. “That is very positive. While there has been negative media off and on over the last three years, it has not dulled the public perception that what we are attempting to achieve is in its best interests. We are trying to do so transparently and in line with GDPR. That has provided everyone with a lift. It is real, honest feedback and for the public to say it trusts what we are doing with its data is really important for us,” he concludes.

digital government report

Harnessing the digital decade In February 2022, the Government launched Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework, a strategy which seeks to enable digital transition across the economy and society and deliver access to a gigabit network to all premises by 2028 and 5G by 2030.

Ambitious goals are set within the framework, not least the targets regarding the digitalisation of Irish businesses, with the Government aiming for 90 per cent of SMEs to be at basic digital intensity and 75 per cent enterprise take-up in cloud, AI, and big data by 2030. Such initiatives come at a time when Irish businesses are in need of rapid uptake of digitalisation, with ActionPoint’s H2 2021 Digital Transformation Index Report stating that only 10 per cent of 248 Irish SMEs across 18 sectors surveyed are currently classed as digitally strategic or optimised.

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The report also found that 37 per cent of

the businesses surveyed were classified as digitally reactive, having “somewhat” clear IT priorities and being reactive to IT needs rather than proactive. Only 51 per cent of respondents were found to be using collaboration and communication platforms such as those that facilitate remote working and 41 per cent of respondents “had used analytics to better understand the customer”.

In this context, the Government’s strategy arrives just in time, with a pledge to “help to maximise the wellbeing of Irish people and their businesses, the length and breath of the country” and to “help us full realise many of the benefits of digital including: more

The framework is set out across four key themes: digital transformation of business; digital infrastructure; skills; and the digitalisation of public services.

These four themes are in line with the four cardinal points of the EU’s Digital Compass. Implementation of the framework will be driven by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Recovery and Investment, which is chaired by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Leo Varadkar TD. Direct actions on the part of the Government to address the digitalisation of businesses will include the rolling out of an “ambitious awareness-raising campaign to encourage businesses to digitalise” and a new digital portal open to all enterprises with information on supports available. The Government also plans to rollout its new Digital Transition Fund, totalling €85 million, which will run until 2026 as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The funding will “be used to help companies at all stages of the digital journey” in an effort to “significantly ramp up the level of micro and start-up businesses becoming digital exporters by 2025”.

The Government also plans to establish both Ireland’s European Digital Innovation Hubs and a National AI Cluster in 2022 as part of their plans.

Under the theme of digital infrastructure, the Government pledges to deliver “a significant package of measures to strengthen the capacity and footing of the NCSC”, including the expansion of its staff from 25 to 45 in 18 months and 70 within five years. A five-year technology strategy will be developed for the centre that “scopes its internal requirements, and its relationship with academia and industry” and legislation will be developed to establish it on a statutory basis with formal powers and a legal mandate.

For skills, the delivery of high-level digital skills “through more and diverse pathways in higher education and further education and training” are pledged,

“The Digital Ireland Framework will help to maximise the wellbeing of Irish people and their businesses, the length and breadth of the country.” along with a move to a unified tertiary education system “enabling a broadening of opportunities, seamless pathways and strengthening employability and enterprise engagement”. Support for digital literacy skills is to be delivered through the implementation of a 10-year Adult Literacy for Life Strategy.

Finally, the digitalisation of public services will be powered by the implementation of the Civil Service Renewal 2030 Strategy, the delivery of the first iterations of the new Life Events Portal, the revision and deliverance of a renewed eHealth Strategy by 2030, and the fulfilment of the Government’s commitment under the National

digital government report

flexible and remote working and new job opportunities; new markets and customers for businesses; more efficient and accessible public services for all; and empowerment and choice in how we learn or participate in social activities”.

Recovery and Resilience Plan to the tune of €291 million.

Speaking upon the launch of the framework, Minister of State with responsibility for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation Robert Troy TD said: “With the launch of the digital strategy, we are setting ambitious targets for the next phase of digitalisation in Ireland so that we can continue to reap the benefits offered by digital technologies. Preparing for tomorrow’s economy and society means seizing the opportunities presented by digital technologies and will enable us to chart a course of recovery that is open, collaborative and responsive to new developments on the horizon.”

Seven targets are outlined by the Government: 1

using plans and mechanisms such as the National Broadband Plan, remote working hubs, and broadband connection points to have all Irish households and businesses covered by a gigabit network no later than 2028 and “all populated areas” covered by 5G by 2030;

2

increasing the share of adults with at least basic digital skills to 80 per cent by 2030;

3

ensuring “widespread access and use of inclusive digital public services”, with 90 per cent of public services to be consumed online by 2030;

4

providing grants and assistance to SMEs to capitalise on digital opportunities, targeting 90 per cent basic digital intensity for SMEs and 75 per cent enterprise take-up of in cloud, AI, big data by 2030;

5

investment in cybersecurity, including increases resources for the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC);

6

developing a “modern and well-resourced regulatory framework”; and

7

playing a “leading role in Europe right across the digital agenda”.

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Collaboration and agility: taking what we learnt in the pandemic to benefit modernisation digital government report

In response to governments and businesses moving services online during the pandemic, the public upskilled, improvin g its digital capability almost overnight. With a greater technologically capable public, Owen Harrison, Chief Information Officer in the Courts Service, discusses where this leaves digital government and where can we go from here?

Prior to the pandemic outbreak, digital transformation was already firmly in the sights of the Courts Service. A digital first approach had been set as one of the main principles of the new Modernisation Programme established to realise the Courts Service Strategic Vision 2030: “to deliver excellent services to court users; working in partnership with the judiciary and others, to enable a world class courts system”. The Courts Service over the past two years has innovatively put in place digital and online solutions to meet the challenges presented by the pandemic.

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“The digital first goal under our Modernisation Programme was aspirational when we set out on this journey of change just over two years ago now,” explains Harrison. The pandemic accelerated plans which were barely beyond concept stage and within weeks remote or virtual courts were

operating online. In the first year, 2020 the Courts Service facilitated 2,400 remote court hearings working in collaboration with the judiciary to keep Courts open and safe during the pandemic. In 2021, that more than doubled.

Other digital responses in the past two years have seen an online appointments system piloted across a number of Courts Service offices, facilitating members of the public and practitioners to go online and book an appointment in court offices. Covid-19 health and safety compliance checks by officers across the country were brought online through an innovative approach using ‘iAuditor’ technology. This technology allows breaches of health and safety protocols to be identified and remedied in realtime on mobile devices, replacing the original manual process. A partnership approach with Revenue saw part of the

“A more agile approach is the way we need to go on our digital projects; designing, developing, and re-developing in an iterative way, applying the user feedback.

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probate process also go online in the past two years.

Harrison, who joined the Courts Service as Chief Information Officer in late 2020, and his ICT team rolled out an ambitious plan in 2021 which involved the tech enablement of courts across the country.

“We almost doubled the number of technology-enabled courts across the country in 2021, with over 100 courtrooms now supporting virtual courts, video-link appearances by vulnerable witnesses, specialist witnesses from other jurisdictions as well as prisoners,” explains Harrison. The Courts Service facilitated almost 34,000 video-links to prisons in 2020 and 2021, which helped reduce the incidences of Covid. Harrison continues: “By enabling our courts with digital and online capabilities we are giving the judiciary and the parties options for hearing cases. There are everyday examples across jurisdictions of cases which have been facilitated because of the remote court option, which in the past might otherwise have been adjourned. The efficient hearing of cases is at the heart of a modern courts system.”

Harrison and the Courts Service ICT team are focused on laying the

Harrison explains the approach in the Courts Service: “We recognise we don’t know everything there is to know about our services and how they are experienced by users. We also recognise that the digital capability of some of our users and their expectations have increased in the past two years.

Our family law and civil reform programmes have therefore taken a user-centric approach to modernising our services. Starting by engaging with court users, representative groups, and the judiciary on their current experience of our services, to understand their painpoints and what could be put in place to make things easier, more efficient, and user-friendly.

Another key element of Harrison’s approach, as detailed in the recently published Courts Service Data Strategy, is improved data management: “Multiple systems across inter-related jurisdictions makes consistent data capture, not to

20,518 20,000

15,000

13,326

10,000

5,000

2,185

2,955

3,094

3,362

3,798

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

0 2020

2021

Tech enabled courts: everyday benefits “An application to adjourn a case due to an increase in the number of witnesses and interested parties wishing to attend to hear evidence was overcome by the ability to offer a blended hearing using video technology in the courts which ensured that the case proceeded as scheduled” His Honour Judge Colin Daly, Circuit Court, commented on a planning dispute case that he had presided over in January 2022 which also then concluded two days ahead of schedule and he complimented the Courts Service on the roll-out of the video-enabled courts noting that “it has made the proceedings so much easier to access”.

mind analysis, very challenging to improve the quality of our information for decision making, particularly around how we best utilise our resources, we need to be developing systems with consistent data capture and analysis in mind also.”

digital modernisation is a collaborative

Harrison recognises that this approach to data is apparent across Government, as reflected in the national digital strategy, Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework. Harrison concludes “Government has learnt a lot through the pandemic, and I think one of the key learnings in the digital space has been the benefit of collaboration. When we work together across Government we see the benefit for members of the public, a key part of our approach to

Service visit www.courts.ie

approach with the judiciary and our partners across the justice sector.”

For more information on the Courts

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“A more agile approach is the way we need to go on our digital projects; designing, developing, and redeveloping in an iterative way, applying the user feedback. The challenge for leaders in the digital government space now is striving for this agility whilst balancing the significant obligations of governance, procurement, and other legislative obligations.”

25,000

digital government report

Harrison acknowledges the appetite and determination within the Courts Service to enable digital change as soon as possible. Harrison explains: “At the same time as replacing and bringing consistency to our legacy systems, we are keen to move on digitising services in an agile way. As I have said before, digital transformation, a key part of our Modernisation Programme, is not just a reimplementation of processes but a full reimagining of business operations. The challenge for leaders who are not in the digital space day in day out, is grasping how different business can be if digital is fully utilised.”

Irish Prison Service Courtroom video appearances 2015-2021

NUMBER OF COURTROOM VIDEO APPEARANCES

foundations of a system that will facilitate an agile and flexible approach to modernisation. Harrison explains: “We need to bring greater consistency across all our systems of which there are a multitude spanning five jurisdictions and three areas of law. Bringing that consistency is no small ask, but we have already started laying the foundations by introducing multi-disciplinary teams, a modern technology platform, and an agile way of working.”

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European eGovernment Benchmark report digital government report

The European Commission’s eGovernment Benchmark Report for 2021 has found Ireland to be on-track in terms of eGovernment penetration but underperforming in terms of digitalisation when compared with other countries.

89% of Irish services are online, compared to a European average of 81% 50% of Irish government portals show whether personal data was consulted, compared to a European average of 61%

Overall scores User centricity Ireland: 94 EU27+ average: 88.3 Transparency Ireland: 78 EU27+: 64.3

45% of Irish services accept eID login, compared to a European average of 64% 71% of Irish services are online for cross-border users, compared to an EU average of 43%

Performance Key enablers Ireland: 47 EU27+: 65.2 Cross-border services Ireland: 73 EU27+: 54.8

Penetration Ireland: 67% EU27: 67% Digitalisation Ireland: 68% EU27: 71%

Relative indicators and environment Digital skills Ireland: 54% EU27: 48% Quality Ireland: 77% EU27: 70%

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Openness Ireland: 85% EU27: 75% Connectivity Ireland: 56% EU27: 51%

Digital in private sector Ireland: 48% EU27: 39%

The European Commission says: “By comparing

environmental characteristics, and, on the other hand, the

performances of countries with similar relative indicator

digitalisation level is low, if compared with similar

scores, Ireland is on-track in penetration and

countries. Ireland’s eGovernment maturity process seems

underperforming in digitalisation. The value of penetration

to be benefiting from a digitalisation of the back- and the

is similar to the one of other countries with comparable

front-office.”

Pexip delivering solutions for critical meetings simple and intuitive as possible whilst enabling government departments to consider the art of the possible when using video to build citizen-facing services into the community.

Global video conferencing provider Pexip is delivering solutions to public sector organisations which enable safe and secure critical meetings anywhere in the world.

With a primary focus on security, Pexip ensures that data remains safe and private, and participants can meet easily on video regardless of technology, device, or location. Pexip is already widely used by public sectors and governments throughout the world and supports those working in the healthcare and justice systems in Ireland.

Niall Doyle, Ireland Country Manager, Pexip explains: “Our emphasis on data security and data sovereignty is of paramount importance to Pexip. It’s what drives us. Our clients remain in control of all media data and metadata and our self-hosted Pexip Infinity platform means data doesn’t leave country borders. This assurance

extends into vital government-to-citizen services like healthcare. This emphasis on security is why government customers around the world trust Pexip to keep their communications seamless and secure.”

“For government communications, scalability is crucial too,” adds Niall. “To effectively handle large-scale internal meetings and a growing need for video engagement with the public, government organisations need a video conferencing solution that is built to be able to meet demand.”

By providing certified, native interoperability for Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, and Google Meet, Pexip has made the user experience as

Pexip integrates video meeting technology into existing workflows •

National tax and pension services;

•

Welfare and unemployment offices;

•

Public health and safety services;

•

Local government and city councils;

•

Courts and law enforcement offices;

•

Departments of traffic and motor vehicles;

•

Immigration offices;

•

Child and family services; and

•

Inter-agency communication at local and national levels.

To ensure that user data is stored securely and protected, Pexip offers multiple and unique deployment options.

“We can provide a public cloud service or a private cloud service, and we support on-prem deployments,” explains Doyle. “With an on-prem solution, the customer can host an end-to-end video service in their own network using their own data centres, sometimes completely isolated from the internet.

Recently documented cyber-attacks reinforce the importance of security, which is one of our founding principles and something we maintain the highest standards of across our customer base.”

Pexip provides technology and services to customers in healthcare, judicial and enterprise in Ireland and supports the public sector with vertical solutions for government. The flexibility to add capacity to the Pexip solution becomes available from set up, with no added licensing or configuration needed.

Organisations can deploy Pexip in a way that is best suited to their technology and infrastructure requirements, be that on-premises or hosted in Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, or as a service.

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to facilitate easy-to-access internal and external collaboration for:

digital government report

Doyle continues: “Government organisations have benefited from the successful implementation of integrated video solutions to enhance their existing services, tools and workflows as well as improving user experience. Pexip’s wide range of platform APIs enables advanced integration into transformational services like telemedicine and virtual court hearings.”

E: niall.doyle@pexip.com W: www.pexip.com

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digital government report

OSi’s National Mapping Agreement: Do more with maps

The National Mapping Agreement gives public service bodies access to digital mapping and geospatial data.

Stuart Doherty from Ordnance Survey Ireland (OSi) explains how public sector organisations can take advantage of the wealth of resources available and do more Advertorial

with maps to improve the delivery of services for citizens.

In the five years since its inception, the National Mapping Agreement has transformed and dramatically extended the use of geospatial information within Ireland’s public sector. More than 100 organisations, from the Office of the Taoiseach and central government 98

departments to local authorities and universities, now take advantage of this centrally funded scheme to access and use up-to-date and authoritative maps, aerial imagery, and spatial data from OSi.

The initiative is open to all government departments, local authorities, enterprise boards, non-commercial semi-state bodies, health services, emergency services, schools, and universities, as well as many other public bodies. OSi’s aim is to make geospatial services as accessible as possible to the public sector to help organisations plan and deliver new services for citizens. Eligible bodies are merely required to sign up to the National Mapping Agreement which can be arranged through correspondence with the Corporate Sales team in OSi, CorporateSales@osi.ie.

As the National Mapping Agreement is funded by the Irish Government, there are no cost barriers for individual organisations. Furthermore, as the agreement covers OSi’s web services, organisations can also access the data they need online, without having to invest in the IT infrastructure to store and manage geospatial data in house.

Besides OSi’s large and small-scale mapping data, the agreement also provides access to many other valuable resources including OSi’s archived aerial imagery, small and medium scale data,

boundary data, and historic mapping.

Public service bodies can use the OSi digital maps, data, and services available through the National Mapping Agreement to:

Communicate information more effectively to citizens

Improve understanding of complex challenges

services, can use OSi data, together with demographic data, to identify where there is greatest need for their services.” efficiently. The Central Statistics Office is just one organisation that has successfully used OSi data to undertake proximity analysis and better understand where new public services, such as maternity hospitals, ATMs, and remote working hubs, are most needed.

Make better-informed decisions Whether they are providing family support, promoting public safety, or developing infrastructure, all public service bodies need relevant, timely and meaningful information to help them make informed decisions. OSi data was instrumental in the development of the national Covid-19 data hub used by the National Public Health Emergency Team, Ireland’s Chief Medical Officer, the Taoiseach’s office, and other senior decision makers. Providing daily updates on a wide range of key indicators, such as capacity in intensive care units, the hub delivered the information that was vitally important to inform critical decisions throughout the pandemic.

Collaborate on innovative new projects As the National Mapping Agreement provides the whole public sector in Ireland with access to the same consistent set of core datasets from OSi, it is easier for organisations to collaborate and share data. There are

also fewer technical barriers in joint projects, as potential data inconsistences and incompatibilities are eliminated, paving the way for innovative new collaborations. University College Dublin, for instance, has successfully collaborated with a range of partners and stakeholders in a ground-breaking project to make environmental data and standardised sensitivity mapping methods available to planners, engineers, and environmental consultants.

In these ways and others, the National Mapping Agreement is helping to deliver a new level of spatial understanding across the whole public sector in Ireland and giving organisations the data they need to transform public services. So, whether public service bodies are already using OSi data and services or just discovering them for the first time, there is so much more that they can all do with maps.

Stuart Doherty is Corporate Sales and Partner Network Development Manager at Ordnance Survey Ireland For more information about the National Mapping Agreement or to arrange a discussion with one of the OSi team, please visit: www.osi.ie/services/national-mappingagreement/

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Across all areas of public service there are challenges that need to be addressed, whether these relate to mitigating the impacts of climate change, creating equitable access to services, or driving down costs. OSi data can be analysed in conjunction with open data to improve understanding of incredibly complex issues. Dublin City Council has used OSi data and services to shine a light on trends in the Dublin housing market and make accurate, up-to-date, and authoritative data accessible to policy makers and the public. An interactive mapping interface makes it easy for policy makers to analyse challenges in different parts of the city and implement new strategies to make Dublin an affordable and sustainable place to live.

those in health, transport, and emergency

digital government report

Many public service bodies use OSi data and services through the National Mapping Agreement to help them communicate information to citizens in more visual ways. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, for example, has created an interactive web app to show citizens exactly where large capital investments are taking place across Ireland. It improves transparency about government spending and brings Project Ireland 2040 to life for people across the country. Many other public service bodies, from citizen information services to tourism groups and sporting organisations, could develop similar solutions to make people more aware of the locations of public services, places of interest, and facilities.

“Public service bodies of all sizes, including

Deliver more efficient, targeted public services Public service bodies of all sizes, including those in health, transport, and emergency services, can use OSi data, together with demographic data, to identify where there is greatest need for their services. They can then focus on these specific locations to deliver the right services to the right people more 99

digital government report

Scaling crossborder innovation

Alexander Holt, Head of Emerging Opportunities and Partnerships within the Scottish Government’s Digital Directorate, speaks to eolas about CivTech, Europe’s first govtech programme, and the lessons learnt in expanding the programme internationally.

Having operated his own digital agency in London, Holt returned to Scotland to manage technological procurement for the Scottish Government as a contractor. “It is this experience of both running a business and procurements that led me to explore different ways of running procurement for government,” he remarks.

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Holt set about exploring a new way to collaborate through the CivTech Scotland programme, taking public sector problems or challenges and matching them with entrepreneurial

talent. “Rather than going with closed, prescriptive tenders, we ran procurements with open, challengebased questions,” Holt explains. “We ran that for three years and we had a number of success and lessons learnt from there.”

From this starting point, the CivTech Alliance was founded. “What we found was that CivTech Scotland – because of its leadership in the govtech space as the first govtech programme in Europe and arguably one of the world’s first digital public service accelerators – was

“The CivTech Alliance was full of likeminded government teams who were setting up their govtech programmes from the United States, Brazil, across Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.

What we found was that we were, particularly during the pandemic, at the forefront of technological responses.

Throughout 2020, we built up these solid relationships through our weekly video calls, really getting to know people, and that is one of the lessons learnt, that we need these deep relationships. From relationships come trust and from trust comes opportunities.”

Considerations for cross-border collaboration included value propositions for each participant’s own government, for companies seeking involvement with governments, and for any other stakeholders, as well as the legal, contractual, and procurement parameters within which each participant had to work.

“When our group came together, a lot of time was taken to define collaboration, and determine what you can and cannot do within jurisdictions.,” Holt says, adding: “Then of course, there is the cultural aspect; how you build cultures across governments and the innovation ecosystems with which you’re about to engage.”

The CivTech Alliance Global Scale Up Programme consisted of countries across Europe, as well as states in the US, Brazil, and Australia. Participating programmes included the 10x Programme for the General Services Administration by the US Government, the US Census Bureau’s Opportunity Project, BrazilLAB, InvestSP and Ideiagov in Brazil, ie Public Tech Lab in Spain, the Technical University of Denmark, GovTech Poland, GovTech Lab Lithuania, Go2Gov in Australia, the

“The CivTech Alliance was full of like-minded government teams who were setting up their govtech programmes from the United States, Brazil, across Europe, the Middle East, and

digital government report

able to team up with other governments around the world,” Holt says. The programme has received a succession of international accolades including winning Apolitical's Global Public Service Team of the Year Award in the Climate Heroes category. It was also selected as one of three programmes from nearly 200 global entries to appear on stage at the Creative Bureaucracy Festival in Berlin in June – the largest public sector innovation show globally – and appears as a case study in the OECD's latest report on cross-border collaboration.

Australia. What we found was that we were, particularly during the pandemic, at the forefront of technological responses.”

Inno Lab in Germany, and Accelerate Estonia.

“We put the proposition together whereby we wanted to get some challenges, so we chose three: teaming up with the United Nations Development Programme on environment resilience; the World Resources Institute on food wastage; and Michelin Scotland Innovation Parc for decarbonising transport,” Holt says.

“From there, we went to the market, and we ran an open call for innovations and an evaluation process.” From 67 applications across 14 countries, 18 companies from nine countries were selected, including Eco Panplas in Brazil, whose plastic recycling business saves 17 billion litres of water for every 500 tonnes of plastic recycled, XDI Systems in Australia, which possesses 85 million assets assessed against eight types of weather conditions and what their future looks like in the context of climate change, and Blue Lobster, a Danish sustainable fisheries platform.

Participation in the programme “was based on expanding their global network, gaining access to the right people, piloting technologies within the alliance, and scaling up their solutions”, Holt says, and access was delivered by the Scots.

Holt estimates over 200 introductions were made over the course of seven weeks, all done virtually. From there, 16 of the 18 companies attended COP26 in Glasgow, where a session was held in the blue zone, as well as three days with ministers and permanent secretaries, organised by the Scottish Government.

Success stories from the experience

include Brasil Mata Vita securing a $2 million contract, rising to $5 million, with a Brazilian state, and Blue Lobster receiving further help with funding rounds and a company securing a contract with the Lithuanian government.

Concluding, Holt reflects on the lessons learned during this cross-border collaboration and innovation: “When you run a rapid programme like this and you know how hard it is working in your own country with the government and ecosystems, let alone across 10, what does it take to deliver these programmes? We found that there was this entrepreneurial mindset within the teams, this persistence to move forward, this resilience to take the flack, the urgency to get results. With that was a required amount of agility, but also autonomy, a programme such as this which was really just an idea on paper back in February 2021 was laying the track the day before the train was coming down the line.

“Traditionally governments have been operating at that strategic policy level but now with the rise of govtech, we have our own delivery teams inside the governments and what that means is it now raises the possibility for intergovernment collaboration at the delivery level. I am very interested in collaborating with governments around challenge series, how can we team up our environment agency and your environment agency to set combined challenges where we go out to the market working with each other on our programmes to attract innovative exportable companies? You will see this whole notion of innovation diplomacy rising to the fore.”

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LocalGov Drupal: A winning opensource CMS for Irish councils

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It was an idea born of cooperative principles: build a website, share the code, pool the costs, and enjoy the benefits. Irish councils have truly taken on board the Government’s Build to Share initiative. Mark Conroy, Annertech’s director of development and leader of the front-end working group of LocalGov Drupal, explains why LocalGov Drupal is a win-win situation for both councils and citizens.

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LocalGov Drupal is a collective of developers who write freely available code for councils to develop websites that are fast, effective and have a great user experience.

Government’s ICT strategy and the

similar approach, which led to the

Build to Share initiative in mind, Limerick

development of LocalGov Drupal, a

freely signed off on sharing its code with

publicly owned asset founded on

Fingal. It made sense; the code had

cooperative principles. Annertech

been developed and paid for, and

became involved in the early stages to

When Fingal County Council were looking to create a new website, they knew exactly what they wanted: something like the work Annertech had already completed for Limerick City and County Council. With the Irish

Fingal’s digital budget could be

rewrite the entire frontend of the

redirected towards new features. This

codebase and partnered with Invotra

would be added to the code and then shared with Cork County Council.

Councils in the UK were developing a

Consulting to take the service to councils in the UK. Now Annertech is bringing the solution to the Irish market.

Benefits LocalGov Drupal is created for councils by councils. Councils typically share similar feature requirements for their websites such as news and events portals, council services, directory listings and search features. They also need to comply with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards. LocalGov Drupal creates a best-in-class, fully accessible version of each.

This is the way councils should operate: collaborating, building public assets, improving service delivery, and saving money.

Cost-effective Because the code is available, for free, councils don’t have to start from scratch, and it stops repetitive spending on the same features. Instead, if a council develops a feature that could be used by others, they share it.

This shared feature set means the budget can be used on the look and feel of a website, such as fonts, colours, spacing, and logos.

LocalGov Drupal can reduce website costs by up to 80 per cent.

The costs are broken down on localgovdrupal.org but some areas in which councils will save are: •

lower development costs – £1million has already been invested in its development;

•

fewer re-developments because LocalGov Drupal is constantly updated;

•

new features and upgrades are free;

•

no licence fees;

•

no change request fees;

•

building and maintaining subsites and microsites. This is the LocalGov Drupal focus for this year: satellite websites, perhaps for an event such as a film festival, St Patrick’s Day or a Christmas calendar;

•

user research: councils can use the research that is continuously done and updated by the LocalGov Drupal working group;

•

accessibility audits: the base theme is WCAG AA, providing fully accessible websites; and

•

reduced service demand because citizens are easily able to use online services.

digital government report

It is a community of shared expertise, collaborating on free-to-access code that follows best practice guidelines. The result is a solid, scalable solution that is open source, as are the new features that are added. Any council can use it, for free.

The business case

“Having been lead developer on Dublin City Council, Limerick City and County Council, Fingal County Council and Cork County Council, I’m using that knowledge to inform a generic LocalGov Drupal product.”

Faster development time Because the features a council typically needs for a website are built and ready to go, development turnaround time is faster. Creating a new council website can take up to a year. In contrast, LocalGov Drupal websites are launched in eight to 12 weeks.

Levelling the playing field

The LocalGov Drupal team is building a better product than they would have been able to build on a typical council website budget, and the team is far more extensive than any regular digital team: LocalGov Drupal has backend developers, frontend developers, product designers, interaction designers, content teams, content designers and user experience researchers involved with the project.

Conclusion The Annertech team has vast experience when it comes to building council websites, including those for Dublin City Council, Limerick City and County Council, Fingal County Council and Cork County Council.

Drupal solutions for clients, usually where there are complex requirements.

T: 01 524 0312 E: hello@annertech.com W: www.annertech.com For more on LocalGov Drupal, see: https://localgovdrupal.org

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Local governments don’t have the same budgets, yet a small council has the same digital needs as a big one.

LocalGov Drupal offers councils access to this technology and team, so it is easy and affordable for even small councils to level up.

Given Annertech was tasked with writing the base frontend system for the LocalGov Drupal platform, who better to implement it on your council website.

About Annertech Founded in 2008, Annertech has become the “go to” Drupal expert in Ireland and works with a range of clients in both the private and public sectors.

It specialises in developing enterprise 103

digital government report

The future of digital public services in the North Director of Digital Shared Services in the Northern Ireland Executive’s Department of Finance, Iggy O’Doherty, discusses the immediate priorities within the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) for data, capability and infrastructure to support digital transformation in government.

Setting the context of a range of challenges and opportunities thrown up by the Covid-19 pandemic in the past two years in relation to the digital transformation of government in the North, O’Doherty points to an ongoing focus on building capability within the NICS. “Improving the digital literacy of staff across government departments, including those of senior leaders, is central to the effective running of our business areas,” he explains, outlining work to professionalise the public sector’s approach to a host of disciplines such as procurement, contract management and security, in order to develop the digital skills required to lead and run modern government departments.

Turning to digital transformation, O’Doherty points to the recent launch of the digital transformation hub for all NICS staff, as a means to help promote better awareness of the services provided, highlight the changes enabled and offer staff a feedback channel for the transformation team. It is seen as a platform for viewing the success of digital transformation work across the public sector.

With the majority of NICS staff now working remotely, the public sector’s dependence on digital technology has never been greater and as a result, O’Doherty states: “There is a growing need to enhance the digital skills of public sector colleagues and improve our own digital capability so that we can deliver better and more efficient public services.”

The success underpins the goals of the NICS’s Digital Transformation Strategy and O’Doherty explains that the portal is used by all government departments to share learning experiences and lessons of excellence.

Recently, O’Doherty oversaw research which considered how NICS staff were using technology and commissioned a survey to ascertain how competent staff felt they were in using technology.

However, the Director of Digital Shared Services is aware of the need to continuously drive forward digital inclusion, recognising that while the pandemic caused a surge in digital interaction with public services, it also exacerbated the digital divide for those who remain offline. To this end, he says that his Digital Inclusion Unit were relentless with their efforts throughout Covid and continue to work closely with external stakeholders, such as Business in the Community, Supporting Communities and LibrariesNI to minimise the gap.

“Our research focused on digital skills to establish if we had the required learning and development to support our staff and we supplemented this with a digital skills assessment,” he says.

Follow up surveys have been conducted and the Director of Digital Shared Services points out that interventions informed by the research have led to an approximate 43 per cent improvement in digital skills.

Additionally, the findings prompted a deep-dive analysis and the creation of an array of eLearning utilities to help develop staff further. At the end of 2021, O’Doherty and his team launched the eLearning package across all NICS departments.

Stressing that work will continue on building digital capability in the NICS, O’Doherty adds: “As head of profession for ICT in the NICS, I am going to tackle capability and talent pipeline issues head on. We have many new digital recruitment opportunities and are actively defining career paths to build future capacity.”

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Digital transformation

Technology and digital adoption O’Doherty explains that increased demand for digital public services has compelled the Digital Shared Services’ design team to adopt new technologies.

services will be underpinned by digital identity assurance, something his team are working on closely with partners to plan for the next generation of secure accredited assurance services.

“This will be a streamlined successor to some existing solutions and will over time replace other digital identity services used across government,” he states.

digital government report

Enhancing digital security The need for digital security assurance has never been more essential given the changes to the threat landscape.

The National Cyber Security Centre recently warned that ransomware is the prevalent threat to government digital services.

Setting out the ongoing work, he says: “We are using public cloud services to build new solutions, often harnessing the services available from current ICT solutions. Our aim is to deploy multicloud services and a major shift in emphasis has been the strategic move to host a number of solutions in gov.uk Platform As A Service – a rapidly scalable infrastructure service designed for 24/7 public sector use.”

He adds: “We have recently deployed some innovative software tools to complement digital development.

Rigorously testing whilst automating security validation within our software development life cycle at all stages has driven excellent results. This digital maturity is now a central feature of our discipline.”

O’Doherty stresses the importance of including the challenge function and external scrutiny as the team develop solutions in an agile way and at pace.

“This initiative will ensure that our team continue to produce high quality, secure solutions, but much faster than before,” he says.

Explaining the influence of the relatively new NICS Enterprise Architecture Principles, a blueprint to be used as a decisional framework when considering process, system and technology directions across all departments, O’Doherty says: “We aim to avoid duplicating effort and incurring unnecessary costs by collaborating across government, sharing and reusing technology, data and services.

“We will adapt and reuse existing information and technology assets where possible before we procure. We are not in the business of developing solutions to rival proven products already available in the marketplace, our Enterprise Digital Design Team publish their code and use open-source software to improve transparency, flexibility and accountability.”

The Director of Digital Shared Services explains that the team also use open standards to ensure that solutions work with other technology stacks and can be easily upgraded and expanded.

Setting out that all future applications should be cloud native in design and cloud vendor agnostic he says that they continue to work closely with the UK Government Digital Service to define and implement data standards, meet user needs, and improve interoperability and data sharing.

Digital response to Covid-19 O’Doherty is adamant that the transformation agenda continues in order to meet the growing expectations of the public. Outlining plans to build on the uptake of over half a million nidirect accounts, he discusses plans to deliver a more personalised and responsive user experience, with a planned ‘tell us once’ service.

Aiming to capitalise on the public’s positive experience shift in dealing with digital public services, O’Doherty explains that personalised ‘tell us once’

O’Doherty says that the implementation of a Security and Information Event Management (SIEM) system and Security Operations Centre (SOC) managed service will improve resilience significantly and points to SIEM and SOC as “our single biggest strategic investment in enhancing digital security in government”.

Strategic direction Turning to the strategic direction of the future, O’Doherty sees digital as being front and centre of future priorities to deliver better public services. He plans to move ahead in 2022 with a new Digital Strategy in the NICS. Acknowledging a number of planned strategies currently being developed by Cabinet Office, the Director of Digital Shared Services says that his team are actively engaged with UK Government partners to ensure that the needs of the Northern Ireland public are reflected in the shaping of future services.

Concluding, O’Doherty says: “Collaboration has been key to digital transformation in public services, we could not have done it on our own. We now need to build on our achievements by developing more partnership working across the public sector, retaining the alliances that we have established but also developing better networks with our private sector colleagues.

“I am really proud of what we have delivered across the public sector during this extraordinary time, and we will continue to do our bit to make the lives of those living here even better.”

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eInvoicing in public procurement digital government report

access to better data for decision making, the automation of tax reporting obligations in some EU member states, and also an improvement in legal certainty and a reduction in barriers to cross-border trade in Europe and internationally.

Public procurement contracting authorities are legally obliged to accept electronic invoices from suppliers where those invoices comply with the European eInvoicing Standard.

Declan McCormack, Principal Officer with responsibility for the eInvoicing Ireland programme in the Office of Government Procurement (OGP), outlines the importance of awareness among public bodies of their legal obligations, the national standards-based approach and above all, the role of suppliers, in helping to reap the benefits of eInvoicing for all stakeholders in public procurement.

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Since April 2020, public bodies in all EU member states have been required to meet their legal obligations arising from the European eInvoicing Directive (2014/55/EU) which applies to invoices related to public procurement contracts.

Over the last number of years, the eInvoicing Ireland programme has helped public bodies to understand how they can meet this legal requirement and to understand the broader benefits of digitalisation.

The Directive sets out that contracting authorities and contracting entities must receive and process electronic invoices that comply with the European Standard (EN-16931) for eInvoicing (‘the EN’).

The EN at a basic level is a data model

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and defines the information, structure and format of compliant eInvoices.

Compliant eInvoices can be formatted in one of two listed XML formats. Ireland has chosen the Peppol (Pan European Public Procurement Online) network as the eDelivery network through which EN compliant eInvoices should be delivered to public bodies. The Peppol network allows businesses to connect once and connect to all public administrations and business in Ireland and Europe on the network.

The advantages of European standardsbased electronic invoicing for public contracting authorities and suppliers include reduced administrative burden and efficiency gains in invoice receipt,

Submitting electronic invoices is now a real and widespread option for suppliers to the public sector, via the Peppol network. Each public body is expected to avail of a shared services solution or establish their own eInvoicing capability.

Collaboration to establish a standardised model for eInvoicing, across the whole of the public sector was vital in order to accommodate the decentralised nature of invoice processing. “While the initiative is led by the Office of Government Procurement, the eInvoicing Ireland programme is very much a collaboration with business and technology services leaders from across our public sector partners, in health, central government, local government, and education. This collaboration and moving forward together has been the programme’s real strength,” explains McCormack.

While there is an obligation on public bodies to be able to receive and process, it remains optional for suppliers to choose to submit their invoices electronically in accordance with the European eInvoicing Standard.

Informed suppliers are key to driving uptake Several initiatives are underway across the public sector, as the main finance shared services functions and a number of individual public bodies, look to suppliers to increase the volume of invoices being submitted electronically and help them jointly reap the benefits of the digitalisation of invoice processing.

McCormack believes “the national eInvoicing approach aims to be suppliercentric, facilitating a common method for suppliers to submit eInvoices to all public bodies, providing a ‘connect once and connect to all’ option for suppliers to

“While the initiative is led by the Office of Government Procurement, the eInvoicing Ireland programme is very much a collaboration with business and technology services leaders from across our public sector partners, in health, central government, local government, and education.”

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reach their public sector clients”.

McCormack also acknowledges that a limited awareness among suppliers of the standardised eInvoicing model in public procurement is a key challenge to driving uptake: “Support by all public bodies for the European eInvoicing Standard, and the use of the Peppol network for delivery of eInvoices, simplifies the choices for suppliers and helps to reduce or avoid costs when they are considering investing in doing business digitally with public sector clients at home and internationally. This is a message we need to continue to communicate with the help of our sector partners, to help businesses make an informed choice on eInvoicing.”

Figure 1

A supplier information sheet is available online at the OGP’s eInvoicing Ireland website (See Figure 1).

Office of Government Procurement eInvoicing supports for public bodies To facilitate public bodies in reaching compliance with the eInvoicing Directive, the Office of Government Procurement established a National Framework Agreement for the provision of eInvoicing and Peppol networking services to the public sector in Ireland. The eInvoicing Ireland Steering Committee, comprising senior representatives from the four OGP sector partners across central and local government, health, and education, informed the establishment of the framework. The comprehensive framework, with three separate lots, offers services and solutions which are compliant with the European Standard on eInvoicing as prescribed by the eInvoicing Directive and caters for the diverse range of needs and requirements across all public sector bodies.

Please visit https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation/office-of-governmentprocurement or contact: einvoicing@ogp.gov.ie

Accessing the framework For anyone looking to access the OGP eInvoicing Framework, please

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The eInvoicing service providers on the framework are connecting public bodies to the Peppol network and offering solutions and services to enable basic compliance with the Directive as well as a more fully integrated approach to eInvoicing, facilitating ‘straight-through processing’.

For further information

log onto the OGP Buyer Zone via https://buyerzone.gov.ie/ and select/ search as follows: Category: Managed Services Keyword: ‘PEPPOL’ or ‘eInvoicing systems’ OGP Clients must register to gain access to the Buyer zone available

E: declan.mccormack@ogp.gov.ie eInvoicing ireland@ogp.gov.ie T: +353 85 803 5902

to all public service buyers accessing live contracts/frameworks.

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Covid proves a tipping point for digital business The Covid pandemic has forced SMEs to view websites as dynamic sales enablers or points of sale. Now SMEs will need help with cybersecurity for their expanded digital presence, writes digital government report

David Curtin, CEO of .IE, the company that manages .ie domains, the preferred online identity for business in Ireland.

The .IE Tipping Point report, Irish ecommerce and digital business in the post-Covid era, is the final report of a trilogy of research analysing consumer and SME behaviour and attitudes since the pandemic.

A tipping point has been passed.

Consumers have fully embraced the convenience of online shopping. In response, SMEs have been forced to adapt, digitally and increasingly attitudinally, transforming their static brochure websites into e-commerce hubs.

There is also evidence that SMEs are not prioritising protection of customers’ data despite this being a big concern for individual consumers.

Key findings Cybersecurity is nonnegotiable In an era of high-profile cyberattacks, 75 per cent of consumers are ‘very’ or ‘somewhat concerned’ about the security of their personal information when shopping online. However, six in 10 SMEs either do not take any precautions to protect sensitive customer data or do not know how to.

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While it might be tempting for an SME to postpone investing in anything that doesn’t lead to a measurable return in the here and now, a cyberattack can be devastating and lead to permanent erosion of customer trust.

The HSE ransomware attack in 2021 showed how a small error can lead to the crippling of critical infrastructure. Similar incidents among businesses are increasingly common, yet most are entirely avoidable with the use of basic cybersecurity tools, such as antivirus software and a password manager.

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Consumer behaviours have been irrevocably changed The pandemic, directly and indirectly, through digital technology and changed sociocultural priorities, has altered many consumer behaviours. Consumers will be driven by convenience, ease of use and experience. As many now value the flexibility of hybrid working, they also value hybrid shopping. They enjoy the experience and the convenience of instore shopping while simultaneously valuing the ease and speed of ecommerce. Consumers will gravitate towards retailers that give them the best of both worlds.

Covid has accelerated Ireland’s move towards cashlessness. 62 per cent of consumers said they were using cash ‘significantly’ or ‘somewhat less’ since the start of the pandemic. Surprisingly, increasing cashlessness is universal among all generations. Despite this, as many as 25 per cent of all Irish SMEs still only accept cash payments.

Sustainability and the environmental

friendliness of a business’s product and supply chain remain a priority for consumers. Almost 80 per cent said it is ‘very’ or ‘somewhat important’ that the product they order online is produced and delivered in a sustainable way.

Digital-first preferences The majority of consumers will prioritise online shopping in 2022. 16 per cent will do most of their shopping online, while 39 per cent said they will shop for necessities in-store, such as groceries, but buy most other things online. 45 per cent of all consumers plan to do most of their shopping in-store.

However, strong generational differences are emerging in consumer attitudes to online and in-store shopping. SMEs must be cognisant of these and be prepared for a shift in purchasing power to younger age groups that have digital-first shopping preferences. Businesses that do not cater to these needs or offer a compelling online experience will simply lose out to their competitors at home and abroad.

The role of the website is changing

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Many businesses were content to use their websites as simple, static information hubs. However, Covid has accelerated a mindset shift. SMEs increasingly view websites as dynamic sales enablers or points of sale. 72 per cent said their website was important in generating sales, up from 66 per cent in 2021. Half of SMEs have invested in their online presence since the start of the pandemic. In the majority of cases, this has resulted in improved sales.

While an increasing number of SMEs are now selling online with modern ecommerce software, which is very positive, digital investment must be a proactive and sustained part of business spending. Digital change is constant and rapid, and Irish businesses must be careful not to stagnate; international retailers will be happy to snap up Irish customers frustrated with a lack of innovation at home.

To download the report, visit: www.weare.ie/tipping-point

E: marketing@weare.ie W: www.weare.ie

Insights 1.

Age is a predictor, not a guarantor It’s no surprise that Millennials and Gen Z, the digital natives first to grow up in the internet age, are more likely to embrace online shopping.

3.

However, there are exceptions to generational trends. Gen Z, despite being among the most vocal proponents of climate action, are the least likely to say that sustainability is important to them when buying online. While all consumers estimated that 55 per cent of their online purchases since Covid was with Irish retailers, among Gen Z that figure was just 41 per cent. SMEs must not apply a one-size-fits-all digital strategy to their target demographics.

Consumer preferences are not static Consumer expectations change as technology evolves and new features provide more benefits.

Our research shows that consumers are increasingly interested in paying for goods and services with a digital wallet and willing to use augmented reality technology to ‘try on’ or sample certain products, such as clothes and furniture. SMEs should take note of what consumers value in a digital shopping experience and find affordable ways to meet that demand, even on an experimental basis.

While full digital service provision is relatively immature, it is likely to emerge as a growth area. SMEs who invest in this technology early are likely to gain traction among hybrid shopping-oriented consumers eager for more choice and flexibility.

4.

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2.

Digital service provision is a strong growth area Covid made physically visiting a service provider, such as a GP, difficult. Many businesses were forced to find ways to provide their service digitally, such as over Zoom. This appears to have worked. 3 in 10 Irish consumers bought a service from an Irish business during Covid. Half of SMEs that provided digital services reported an increase in sales over the course of the pandemic.

Digital mastery through persistence The SME that has continuously looked after their website, online store and other digital technologies is likely to be the one that weathered the toughest pandemic restrictions. Many businesses, which after years of steady investment are naturally attuned to changes in digital consumer demands, have actually flourished since Covid, some exceeding 50 per cent online sales growth.

Research was conducted in January 2022 by Core Research with 1,000 Irish consumers and 502 retail and customer-facing professional services SMEs. In addition to its role as the national registry for .ie domain names .IE operates the .IE Digital Town Programme and conducts authoritative research, which provides insights and data for policy makers and SME organisations.

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Connecting Government 2030 strategy launched The Government has launched its digital and ICT strategy for Ireland’s public services, which lays out the pathway to achieving its goal of having 90 per cent of applicable government services consumed online by 2030.

The strategy, Connecting Government 2030: A Digital and ICT Strategy for Ireland’s Public Service, was unveiled by Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath TD and Minister of State for eGovernment Ossian Smyth TD in early March 2022. It has been designed to complement two previous government strategies, addressing the public services dimension of Harnessing Digital: The Digital Ireland Framework, the national digital strategy, and also supporting targets set in the Civil Service Renewal 2030 plan.

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Key to both Connecting Government 2030 and Harnessing Digital are the goals that have been set in terms of both provision of digital public services and uptake by citizens of said services.

Under the overarching goals of the EU’s Digital Decade, the Government is seeking to develop a “trusted, user-

driven, intuitive, inclusive and efficient world-leading digital government service”, with 90 per cent of applicable services to be consumed online by 2030.

It also aims to have 80 per cent of eligible citizens using the online MyGovID service by 2030.

Under the strategy, the Government aims to provide individuals with: better access to high quality digital government services; services that are “delivered in an equitable, inclusive and sustainable manner”; secure and transparent reuse of personal data; and opportunities to co-create government services.

Complementing this will be the Government’s aims for businesses, which include: better access to integrated digital government services; reduced administrative overhead; govtech opportunities; and greater engagement with government.

Six priority action areas will define where the Government will seek to reform in its efforts to digitise the public service over the current decade. First is the development of a human-driven digital experience, whereby understanding of users and their needs will be developed in order to deliver a more effective service, a goal that will be helped by the second action area, harnessing data effectively. Examples of this approach will include the adoption of the once-only principle, meaning that users will have to supply information to public service organisations once.

Under the third action area of government as a platform, the Government pledges to take on a cloudfirst approach to the delivery of services, as well as the expansion of the Build to Share Programme in order to transform delivery and enhance cybersecurity.

Verified MyGovID accounts will be used

where applicable to authenticate individuals attempting to access services under the same action area.

The strengthening of digital skills will be key to any development of Ireland’s digital public services, and this is the fifth action area of the strategy, where the Government pledges to update the competence model to include a core digital and data competence at all levels of the public service, as well as the development of a new Civil Service ICT HR Professionalisation Strategy. The strategy will “need to reflect the support requirements needed to deliver digital government services that are available on demand, 24-7”.

Sixth and last among the action areas is a focus on governance and leadership, whereby the Government will “put in place governance structures to drive

Connecting Government 2030 sets out a framework within which all public service organisations can deliver their own digital commitments as appropriate. Those who have not done so already will also be required to name a board member responsible for digital transformation within the department and/or sector, who will be the liaison with the Digital Strategy Implementation Unit. The strategy states that “investment decisions and approvals for initiatives will be contingent on alignment with this strategy and the wider national digital agenda”.

Speaking upon the launch of the strategy, McGrath said: “We have seen a great improvement in the provision of online public services over recent years.

But we must build on those strong foundations and accelerate how we

progress into the future. Connecting Government 2030 provides us with a framework to do this and to create world-leading digital government services while at the same time improving the off-line experience for those who are unable to access services digitally. The ambitions set out in Connecting Government 2030 also reflect my overall strategy of reform and innovation which my department is pursuing. My aim with this strategy is to provide better public services for individuals and businesses.

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The fourth action area, evolving through innovation, concerns the development of fresh approaches to problem solving and the building of user-centric solutions within the public service. In order to do so, the Government plans to develop partnerships with industry and academia, as well as making it easier for start ups and SMEs to work with government in order to improve digital services.

digital transformation across government”. A digital government development roadmap will ensure “consistent and coherent delivery of quality digital government services as framed in the vision” and a Digital Strategy Implementation Unit will work in conjunction with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s expenditure management units to ensure progress is being delivered.

Minister of State Smyth added: “In government, we must continuously examine how our public services are delivered and how digital technologies and data can assist in that delivery. This new strategy, Connecting Government 2030, guides us towards achieving this ambition.

“Successful digital transformation will ensure digital channels are the preferred way for people to access public services. We must continue to make services as seamless, user-friendly, and accessible as possible. Digital transformation is not a project; it must be central to government policymaking and culture.”

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The digital welfare state: The international perspective As Ireland ramps up its public sector digitalisation goals, with 90 per cent of public services to be consumed online by 2030, eolas surveys the international status of the digital welfare state and its risks and opportunities.

Digital welfare state The digital welfare state is defined by the organisation Open Global Rights as a system whereby “social protection and assistance systems are increasingly driven by digital data and technologies used to automate, predict, identify, monitor, detect, target and punish”. At its base, the idea of the digital welfare state is to move the paper-based publicfacing functions of government to a digital footing, with programmes such as unemployment benefits, tax filing, and public health moved online.

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Open Global Rights does however point out that digitalisation of welfare systems has often “been accompanied by deep reduction in the overall welfare budget, a narrowing of the beneficiary pool, the

elimination of some services, the introduction of demanding and intrusive forms of conditionality, the pursuit of behavioural modification goals, the imposition of stronger sanctions regimes, and a complete reversal of the traditional notion that the state should be accountable to the individual”. An example offered by the organisation is the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16.9, the goal of establishing every person’s legal identity by 2030, in response to which organisations have launched programmes that include the need for identity documents in order to gain access. While this may not seem like much of an issue in the global north, there are 502 million people in subSaharan Africa and 357 million in South Asia who lack official identification.

Denmark The Danish dedication to digitalisation of public services is notable for the Government’s commitment to go “digital by default”, with almost every service now available online, such as payment of taxes, reporting of bicycle theft, or the making of appointments with the public health service. Danish citizens now have personalised digital signatures in order to sign documents online.

With data security and privacy given high priority, financial transactions and other sensitive services require two-factor identification. Public healthcare is accessed via a yellow magnet-stripe card that is presented at the point of care; these cards also serve as library cards. Health record keeping and sharing are mostly done digitally, while reminders of upcoming health service appointments are sent to the citizen’s electronic mailbox, which is accessed via twofactor signature.

The mailbox is also where Danish citizens receive information about welfare payments they receive, such as the quarterly child welfare “child check”, or unemployment support. Citizens designate a bank account and public authorities transfer funds into said account digitally.

This digitalisation of public services has also dripped down to business and finance in Denmark; with the correct documentation, a business can be launched online and active within 24 hours, and those launching a business can access an open database of potential business partners maintained by the Danish government. Any business selling good or services to the public authorities of Denmark must submit their invoices through a purpose-built digital system.

Germany Germany has also embraced the digital by default concept, with its Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development following a simple approach that digital solutions “must be the default position for projects to meet their objectives within German development cooperation”. As a result of this approach, projects which do not deploy digital components must identify and justify their reasons for not doing so.

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Despite its apparent risks, digitalisation of public sectors is one of the defining trends of the 2020s, with governments worldwide looking to streamline operations and ease access to services for future generations of digital natives.

The organisation GovNet defines the top five benefits of such digitalisation as: operation digitalisation; increased innovation and agility; easier collaboration across government departments; increased data transparency; and creating a better organisational culture.

An OECD report on the German digitalisation efforts published in December 2021 spoke of how the digital by default approach “ensures both the technical and methodological quality of the proposed solutions” and “aims to enable societies to make digitalisation sustainable”. The report found that the German digital learning platform atingi, which “provides free access to highquality digital learning, anytime and anywhere”, had reached more than one million people and has a goal of reaching 20 million by the end of 2023 and becoming the standard German digital learning tool.

Germany, along with Estonia, the Digital Impact Alliance and the International Telecommunications Union, supporting partners to enable delivery of public goods within GovStack, the international e-gov initiative. The next phase of this initiative will involve the creation of a model digital government services platform that demonstrates scaling opportunities across services and sectors. An internal survey within the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development found that most project owners now want to use digital tools and approaches in their work to increase effectiveness and reach. The survey did also identify an ongoing need to develop expertise on digital technologies within the ministry.

Lessons learnt during the ministry’s progress thus far, according the report, include: that there is no one solution, and that digital solutions “need to be tailored to the local context in which they will be embedded”, with open-source solutions playing a crucial role in this regard; that Germany recognises the need for both ongoing learning and investment in order to further build capacity; and that international partnerships are “crucial to mainstreaming the vision of a fair digital future”.

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Salesforce: The world’s number one CRM Stobie says. “One of the key considerations within this space is security and we spend many millions on that to ensure our customers can trust us with their data because trust is one of our guiding principles. As an entity, we offer experience and service in the same proven tool, we believe that if you separate those you can suffer in relation to your capability. At a high level, what makes us unique is that we offer a single pane of glass in terms of people being able to see the data from disparate systems rather than having different systems they need to engage with. We are person-centric and offer speed to value, great agility, a future ready platform and we execute in terms of solutions at the back end, where we have a very modular approach.”

John Stobie, Regional Vice President of Public Sector Sales for Salesforce Ireland, and Paul Pick-Aluas, Regional Vice President of Strategy and Transformation for the Global Public Sector with Salesforce, speak to eolas about the company’s identity as the number one customer relationship Advertorial

management (CRM) company in the world.

“Salesforce is the number one CRM company in the world and we're looking to help bring the public sector and citizens together in a digital way for the digital age,” Stobie begins.

We are much more than just a CRM company though. Salesforce’s public sector platform, Customer 360, is an integrated platform built around enabling case management, relationship management, collaboration, integration, 116

analytics, and modern application development. The company is eager to help the public sector with their stated goals of achieving an ecosystem of digital skills and to ensure that there is widespread access to the digital public services that citizens are looking for, while enabling the Government’s target of 90 per cent of services consumed online by 2030.

“We’re in a position to help with that,”

Stobie stresses that Salesforce is guided by its core values: trust; customer success; innovation; equality; and sustainability. He explains how these values work in practice: “These values are lived daily within the organisation. If people trust us with their information, we want to be 100 per cent sure that it is totally secured. We have a website – trust.salesforce.com – where people can check how our systems are performing around the world. Customer success is integral, we want to ensure the best practice to help customers accelerate their digital journeys. Innovation is key; we are evergreen. We have a platform that delivers three innovation releases every year so you don’t have to worry about that as a customer, you will always be on the latest version that we have innovated on.

“As an employee, one of the aspects that I like is our philanthropic model. We have a 1-1-1 model whereby 1 per cent of our equity, time and products is donated. This is something that Salesforce set up from the start of the company and if you look today, it’s about €523 million in giving, 6.7 million hours of employee volunteer time and 54,600 non-profits such as schools that have

benefited from using our technology for free or at a discount. We also have a huge focus on sustainability within Salesforce, we’re a net zero company already, we are also a part of the 1t.org initiative where we are trying to plant one trillion trees and we have 45 million done to date.”

Pick-Aluas reasons that it is Salesforce’s roots as a CRM tool that is at the heart of their success: “Our person- and entitycentric core and lineage, having started as a CRM, is key because it’s pervasive across all our technologies and truly enables you a single view of the customer or stakeholder. Also, by linking data from other systems it’s not just what’s in our tools that allows customers to shape their enterprise architecture.

We are an integrated platform, as opposed to some of the other solutions on the market where you see CRM as an extension of infrastructure as a service and it doesn’t give you the customer centricity you need.”

Salesforce has the ability to stand up solutions quickly due to its integrated platform, which also allows it to maintain an engaged partner ecosystem with the ability to put solutions in place. “You can start small with us and build upon it; you can expand within the platform from there,” says Stobie. “We have the platform, resources, our internal experts, and the partner capability to ensure speed to value. We believe this is essential so that stakeholders can start

“Salesforce has the ability with investment and technical capability, to be better positioned to be more secure than an individual agency spending on on-premises security.”

John Stobie

seeing success straight away. That gives us an edge.”

Building upon this, Pick-Aluas concludes: “A new customer has to see the improvement, and how it translates to their users in gradual fashion and see the process evolving. It exposes to us, these implementations in the public sector, that one of the key gaps to address with digital transformation is on the organisational side. People say that digital transformation is about the technology but the way you execute is defined by the organisational and economic aspects of transforming. That usually is where we see challenges in executing because many of these agencies aren’t ready for transformation, so we have to help them with that aspect as well.”

“That’s why we’re more of a transformation partner rather than a technology vendor. We have to develop more agile ways of working on the business side and bridge the chasm between business and IT with a tool that is more accessible and modernised.

Bringing together this unified view is often disruptive at the organisational management level so we have to consider all of these barriers to modernisation as well as legacy technology.”

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“Salesforce has the ability with investment and technical capability, to be better positioned to be more secure than an individual agency spending on onpremises security,” Stobie says. During a recent cyberattack on a customer, the Salesforce platform remained operational while on-prem solutions were impacted, demonstrating Salesforce’s commitment to safety. Pick-Aluas adds: “We’re a security company that makes business platforms. It’s the core of our architecture, engineering, and design.

It’s one of the key reasons customers buy us, we bring security to them. It’s a risk for agencies to keep their stuff on premises or in data centres. We have invested billions and continue to every year in new ways to secure data.”

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Stobie also places great emphasis on the company’s speed to value, as seen with the rapid build of the HSE’s CoVax platform and how the company has just finished standing up crisis management systems for a European government in less than a week.

For more information visit www.salesforce.com/eu/publicsector

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The European response to war in Ukraine

Europe’s response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been centred on two major planks: the intake of refugees fleeing the conflict and the implementations of economic sanctions against the Russian Federation. Discussions about a blanket ban on Russian gas and oil imports have come to define the latter.

An outright European Union embargo on Russian gas imports has been mooted in discussions in Brussels since the invasion of Ukraine, but such a prospect has thus far been resisted, with Germany in particular hesitant to the idea despite its suspension of the Nord Stream 2 project in the days prior to the invasion.

Construction on the €10 billion Nord Stream 2 project, a 1,234km natural gas pipeline running through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, was completed in September 2021, but it had yet to begin operation when Germany announced its suspension on 22 February 2022 in response to the Russian recognition of the breakaway People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk the day before. Russia would then invade Ukraine two days later on 24 February.

While the UK has pledged to phase Russian oil out of its imports by year-end, the EU has so far only agreed to ban Russian coal, although it does plan to follow the UK in banning oil. Natural gas is, however, a more difficult import to

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exclude given its importance; with Russia supplying 40 per cent of Europe’s gas needs, the bloc made up of countries such as Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Hungary, has argued that such a ban would do more damage to Europe than to Russia.

Indeed, an April 2022 report by the Bundesbank stated that an embargo on Russian gas imports would plunge Germany into recession. An immediate ban on such imports, it estimated, would result in an output loss of €165 billion this year, with real GDP for 2022 falling by 2 per cent compared to 2021. The German economy is even more reliant on Russian gas than the European economy, with Russian natural gas accounting for 55 per cent of German needs; a third of this is used to power industrial production in industries such as steel and chemicals that are key to Germany’s manufacturingbased economy.

The EU has, however, unveiled five packages of sanctions against Russia, and has also sanctioned various Russian

individuals, since the first package was unveiled on 23 February, the day before the invasion. The design of the sixth package is currently underway.

Transactions with the Russian Central Bank have been banned, Russian carriers have been banned from overflight of EU airspace and from accessing EU airports, Vladimir Putin and Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov have both had their assets frozen, and Russian state-owned firms have been targeted.

In response to the economic damage wrought by sanctions, specifically those on the Russian central bank, Russia has stipulated that its natural gas can only be purchased using roubles, a move that allowed the currency to recover to its prewar value. As paying in roubles would violate the sanctions, the European Commission has stated that EU companies can work around this by paying in euro or dollars, which are then converted into roubles.

The sixth package of sanctions currently being developed is rumoured to include

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Ukrainian refugees collect meals and clothes in Kraków, Poland.

the ban on Russian oil imports and the expulsion of Russia from the SWIFT international payments system. Of course, how long and how far these continuing sanctions go remains to be seen as the invasion continues.

Refugees According to UN estimates, 5.1 million people have left Ukraine since the outbreak of conflict as of 21 April. Over half of these have gone to neighbouring Poland, which has taken in 2,867,241 refugees and has been the EU member state most affected by the crisis. Romania has also taken in a large number of refugees, totalling 769,616.

The EU has granted Ukrainians fleeing the conflict a blanket right to stay and work in any of its member states for up to three years, and they will also receive social welfare as well as access to housing, medical treatment, and schools. MEPs approved the European Commission’s proposal for Cohesion's Action for Refugees in Europe (CARE) to redirect available funds to EU countries refuges in March. This could include an additional €10 billion from React-EU, a fund created to act as a bridge between Covid emergency measures and cohesion funds.

The European Parliament also extended the period in which the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Internal Security Fund operate to mid-2024. The extension allows member states to redeploy unused funds to deal with the influx of refugees from Ukraine and is expected to provide €420 million. Poland, the state which has taken the most refugees in total numbers, and non-EU member Moldova, the state which has taken the most per capita, have both already said that they will require further funding to deal with their significant intakes.

The Commission has also issued new guidelines for border guards carrying out checks at the borders with Ukraine, including the simplification of border controls for vulnerable persons and the establishment of temporary border crossing points.

The European Parliament also approved the deployment of the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) to help Moldova, in order to manage the number of people arriving in the country.

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Russian gas: IEA 10-point plan for Europe In the 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas, the International Energy Agency (IEA) outlines a strategy aimed at reducing the EU’s gas imports from Russia by one-third, with potential, it contends, to increase this to 50 per cent while still reducing emissions.

Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA.

Amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, uncertainty shrouds the future of Russian gas supplies next winter.

In 2021 alone, the EU imported 155 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas from Russia, totalling 45 per cent of its gas imports and almost 40 per cent of its gas consumption. Europe’s overreliance on imported Russian natural gas has come under close scrutiny following the invasion of Ukraine. A proposed reduction would require a radical and concerted policy effort by member states.

According to the IEA, its proposed measures are consistent with the climate objectives of the European Green Deal and have regard for both energy security and affordability.

However, as a result of the risk to the European economy, the IEA did not include additional measures to stymie industrial demand for Russian gas in the near-term.

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1. Moratorium on new Russian gas supply contracts Impact: Reducing the minimum take-orpay levels for Russian imports, enabling a greater diversity of gas supply.

2. Source alternative gas supplies Impact: Increase additional gas supply from non-Russian sources by approximately 30 bcm per annum.

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3. Introduce minimum gas

4. Accelerate renewable

storage obligations

energy deployment

Impact: Improved gas system

Impact: Reduced gas use amid a

resilience balanced against

35 Twh increase on anticipated

increased demand and cost amid

generation from new renewable

higher injection requirements to refill storage in

energy projects next year.

2022.

5. Maximise generation from

6. Shield vulnerable

bioenergy and nuclear sources

electricity consumers

Impact: A 13 bcm reduction of

Impact: Reduced energy bills for

gas use for electricity through an

vulnerable consumers via

additional 70 Twh of power

redistributed tax receipts from

generated by existing dispatchable low

windfall profits.

emission sources.

7. Accelerate heat pump

8. Accelerate energy

deployment

efficiency improvements in

Impact: An additional 2 bcm

buildings and industry

reduction in gas consumption for

Impact: Lower energy bills,

heating per annum.

greater comfort, and enhanced economic competitiveness.

9. Incentivise consumer

10. Diversify and

thermostat adjustment

decarbonise sources of

Impact: Reducing thermostat temperature in buildings by

1oC

across the EU could reduced gas demand by up to 10 bcm per annum.

power system flexibility Impact: Disentanglement of the link between Europe’s natural gas supply and its electricity security, increased flexible demand, and a reduction of expensive, gas-intensive peak supply demand.

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Mol an óige Claire Kerrane TD General election 2020 heralded several ‘firsts’ for Claire Kerrane, the youngest female deputy in the 33rd Dáil. Already a competent media performer for Sinn Féin, the Roscommon-Galway TD sits down with Ciarán Galway to discuss experience, elections, and expectations.

A native of Tibohine, just outside Ballaghaderreen in north-west County Roscommon, Kerrane became a first time TD in February 2020. Simultaneously she became the first female elected to the Dáil in Roscommon since 1969 (and only the second ever after Fine Gael’s Joan Burke), and the county’s first Sinn Féin TD since George Noble Plunkett (North Roscommon) and Harry Boland (South Roscommon) were elected in 1918.

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Occasionally, since Michael Brennan’s election in 1927, Roscommon has been fertile ground on which independents could plough their furrow. Today, they retain almost half of first preference votes. Indeed, as a fledgling politico, Kerrane came under the wing of former independent TD Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan when she headed up his constituency office after completing her English, sociology, and politics degree at NUI Galway.

Kerrane’s own political pedigree is emblematic of a constituency that, throughout the last century, had been a

Describing her initial decision to become a parliamentary assistant as “one of the best things I ever did”, she recalls: “I was the only one in the office. It gave me a great grounding. I

bastion of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. “My grandad – dad’s dad – was a big, big Fine Gaeler,” she explains. “I never met him, but I have often heard stories that he used to stand over people in the polling stations. He was staunchly Fine Gael.”

am still in touch with Luke, even today, and we are good friends. He has always been a constant support. In the last general election, he came canvassing for me, so I think a lot of him.”

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‘‘

“Trying to reform the entire social protection system is my absolute aim.”

Claire Kerrane TD, Social Protection and Rural Development spokesperson, Sinn Féin Youth wings A Sinn Féin member since the age of 18, Kerrane then went back to college to complete a master’s in education for secondary school teaching in English and civic, social, and political education or leaving cert politics and society.

“I did that for two years and then when I came out of that, I got a job in Leinster House as an advisor for social protection with John Brady, our Wicklow TD, in 2016. I worked in Leinster House for the party from 2016 right up until the general election in 2020,” she adds.

Crediting her involvement with the D'Arcy Mellows Cumann of Ógra Shinn Féin at NUI Galway as having been “really important for me”, Kerrane believes that party youth wings are an important channel for young people.

“I think it is really important that we have that youth element within the party. [Ógra] has a different style. I think it gets away with a little bit more and can be a bit more radical. It is really important because its role is to try to bring young people in.”

Ideology Several factors informed Kerrane’s gravitation towards Sinn Féin. Primarily, from 2010 onwards, a protest campaign sought to prevent a downgrading of Roscommon University Hospital. “The thing that kickstarted politics for me was the big campaign in County Roscommon in 2011 after the emergency unit at the hospital closed,” Kerrane recalls. “It was a massive campaign at the time. It felt as though the entire county went up to the Dáil. There were many protests and marches.”

Ultimately, the decision to close the hospital’s emergency unit,

taken by the Fine Gael-Labour government in July 2011, provoked significant and lasting resentment within the county, with Fine Gael yet to return a TD since.

“I remember the injustice of it because promises had been made on the square in Roscommon [town] that this A&E would be retained. Once Fine Gael got into government, the A&E was being closed down.”

Conversely, the Roscommon-Galway TD maintains that Sinn Féin was “strong” on the emergency department campaign, despite having only one councillor on Roscommon County Council. Coincidentally, that councillor, Michael Mulligan, is a close family friend. “He has been in my life, all my life. After the A&E campaign, I went to a [Sinn Féin] Ard Fheis as a guest of him and I would have met a lot of politicians at the time. That was it. For me, one of the really big elements of the party was Irish unity; it is something I really want to live to see and be part of if I can at all. That was definitely a driver.”

Aligning her party along its preferred left republican axis, Kerrane acclaims its espousal of “social justice and equality”, and while emphasising its drive towards Irish unity, she concedes: “We will not do it on our own.”

Offering some insight into her analysis, and refuting any drift to the ideological centre, Kerrane insists: “We are in a different space now in politics. It used to be – and I know it from my own family – that each house was either Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael. Things have changed drastically. While the parties that do exist on the left are small – all the other ones I mean – I would love to see us coming together, particularly after the next election, if the numbers are there, to see a left party in power, whatever form that will take.

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Claire Kerrane TD

Election 2020 In keeping with the party’s overall outing, Kerrane secured almost 5,000 more first preference votes in the February 2020 general election, when compared with her previous run in the 2016. Given its risible performance in the local and European elections less than a year beforehand, it remains a dramatic and instructive tale in the potential for sudden change in the prevailing electoral winds.

“It was some change alright,” she quips, adding: “Ever since then all we hear is that we better run enough candidates the next time. We will not make that mistake again. But we could not foresee it.”

Leinster House definitely helped me within that bubble. Obviously, I had a relationship with a lot of the TDs. I knew a lot of staff and ushers. All of that helped.”

However, having opened two offices – one in Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon and one in Ballinasloe, County Galway – Kerrane stresses the challenge of establishing herself as a new TD amid the Covid-19 pandemic and public health restrictions.

“The biggest challenge has definitely been Covid. Interaction on the ground has been missing during this first two years. Getting out there, meeting people and organisations has been a real challenge,” she maintains.

“As a party, we try to canvass all of the time, not just at election time. That is important for me as well and it is something that I really like about the party. It is unusual when you

‘‘

Reiterating that Roscommon is not a traditional stronghold of her party (“there is no point in pretending otherwise”), the TD acknowledges that 2019 was a bitter experience for her party. As such, its primary objective for Roscommon-Galway the following year was modest: build the party and build the vote in the constituency.

“We worked hard, we did everything we could, but we never thought, ‘right, here we go’,” she says. In the end, though, having secured 8,003 (17.55 per cent) first preference votes, Kerrane successfully dispatched her nearest rival, Fianna Fáil’s (now Senator) Eugene Murphy, on the sixth count to become the third and final candidate elected for Roscommon-Galway.

Now, ahead of any future election, the sitting TD’s primary objective is to retain the seat for Sinn Féin.

That task will be complicated by several factors, not least the strength of the constituency’s two sitting independent TDs, and the fact that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil will be seeking to revive their fortunes. Intriguingly, the constituency has never returned the same three TDs consecutively.

Initial experience Equipped with experience from her four years in Leinster House, Kerrane had a head start on many of the 47 other first time TDs. “It was like a first day at school,” she laughs, “I remember one of my colleagues saying to me, ‘where is the bathroom?’

That really helped me because at least I knew where the bathroom was, if nothing else.

“I think the experience and the background in

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“We will enter the next election with the ambition, the willingness, and the absolute ability to enter government.” knock on someone’s door and the first thing they ask is, ‘is there an election on?’ It is nice to be able to just say, ‘are there any issues in the area, how are things?’ It is not something that would typically happen, particularly in rural constituencies. That has definitely helped since Covid has eased.”

Social protection Appointed as Sinn Féin's spokesperson on social protection and rural development, Kerrane is tasked with shadowing the Minister for Social Protection and Minister for Rural and Community Development, Heather Humphreys TD. Critiquing the social protection system as being “very rigid, very black and white”, riddled with “anomalies”, and “difficult to manoeuvre”, the Sinn Féin TD asserts: “Trying to reform the entire social protection system is my absolute aim.”

Identifying the prevention of poverty as her priority, Kerrane claims that those who are reliant on social protection, including family carers and people with disabilities, “are not being served well by our current social protection system”.

“Every single core weekly social welfare rate is set below the poverty line. We have a lot of work to do. To create a social protection system that protects people from poverty should be a very easy aspiration and should already exist, but unfortunately it does not,” she contends.

Though she recognises that change would not come overnight, the Sinn Féin spokesperson’s most immediate action if she were Minister would be to align all social welfare rates with the minimum essential standard of living (MESL).

“We need to link into the minimum essential standard of living to give people that certainty in relation to their payments and to protect them from poverty. As well as that, we need to get a state pension put in place for carers. It is something that has been talked about for a really long time and something that needs to be done.”

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Rural development

Challenges

Turning to rural development, in the Sinn Féin spokesperson’s assessment: “The portfolio itself is really just loads of schemes, grants, and financial supports.

Whereas a lot of the issues in rural communities – and I live in one – are housing, broadband, health, and access to services which do not actually come under the remit of rural development.

Opposition is a frustrating position for any political party, particularly one which has never held power in the history of the State. Allied to the scrutiny of government, the greatest challenge in opposition is developing viable policy alternatives. Yet, despite having seized the title of lead opposition party, the reality “can feel like you are hitting a brick wall”, Kerrane admits.

“Those are the issues I want to be raising with Minister Humphreys but cannot because they are not under her remit; they are housing, they are health, they are everything else. Housing is an issue everywhere. Sometimes it can be

Suggesting that it would be “helpful if the Government had more of an open mind”, she is adamant: “On certain issues, we do want to work together, and I would find this in my own portfolio with Minister Humphreys. The Government

more predominant in rural areas where there is far less supply, for example. For me it is about developing and sustaining our rural communities so that people can actually live in them and do not have to leave them to go to work.”

does not have all the answers. Sometimes there is a shut door where you do not feel that it is listening or taking on board what you are saying. That can be really frustrating. It is a challenge of opposition.

Overall, Kerrane’s most immediate priority if she were minister would be to focus on catching up and accelerating National Broadband Plan (NBP) delivery. “[National Broadband Ireland (NBI)] are missing their targets. There are no penalties for them missing their targets in their contract.

The first thing I would do is get [NBI] around the table and work out how they are actually going to catch up on last year’s targets; I think it was 34,000 premises passed from an initial target of 115,000. Broadband is absolutely critical for rural areas, and we need to get that right,” she says.

“As a TD and as a party, you want to be seen to getting things done. You want to not only raise issues and put forward solutions, but to see things happen. When you are in opposition, that is a lot more difficult to do because you are not in government, and you do not have the same ability.”

Ambition Cognisant of the weight of expectation should Sinn Féin manage to install itself in Government Buildings, Kerrane insists internal preparations are ongoing. “Under Mary Lou’s leadership, it is not a case of sit back and see what happens. In my position, I am looking at, if I was minister tomorrow what would I do in my first 100 days, what are my priorities? That is the mindset that we have to be in. We have to be prepared and we have to be ready.

“At the same time, we are not saying this is done or we have this in the bag, we have to be mindful that things change very quickly. We learned that lesson in 2019 and 2020. We will enter the next election with the ambition, the willingness, and the absolute ability to enter government.”

Kerrane’s personal ambitions are reserved. “Try to hold my seat,” she quips. “I love what I am doing, but it is challenging. It is go, go, go. I very happy to be a TD and I will be here for as long as the people allow me to. That is what it comes down to in the next election, my own ambition will be to hold the seat for the party, to grow the vote and to hopefully enter government, whatever that may look like. That is what we want to do because that is where we will deliver change.”

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The use of emergency planning powers The Government is to use emergency planning powers in order to house refugees fleeing conflict in Ukraine. eolas analyses how and when these powers are and are not utilised.

In March 2022, as millions of people began to leave Ukraine to escape the Russian invasion, Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O’Brien TD wrote to local authority chief executives to inform them that provisions in the Planning and Development Act 2000 mean that certain developments can be initiated without a planning application under emergency conditions. These developments are being mooted as an answer to accommodating the up to 100,000 refugees expected to come to Ireland.

The provision to which O’Brien was referring to is Part XI, section 179 (6)(b) of the 2000 Act, which deals with developments by local and state authorities. The section states that the rules and guidelines for planning listed “shall not apply to proposed development which is necessary for dealing urgently with any situation the manager considers is an emergency situation calling for immediate action”.

The indeterminate language within the Act, which does not specify what constitutes an emergency and instead allows managers of these developments to determine

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for themselves, means that the powers can be used across a broad range of planning. As O’Brien’s letter to local authorities highlights, emergency planning powers were previously used in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, facilitating the construction of temporary hospitals, step-down facilities, healthcare facilities, vaccination and testing facilities, ancillary infrastructure, and other related works.

“It is likely that these powers may have to be availed of again to address the accommodation and other requirements associated with managing the needs of those fleeing the conflict in Ukraine,” O’Brien wrote in his letter.

At the time of O’Brien writing the letter, 600 people had already arrived in Ireland from war-torn Ukraine, and the number of refugees Ireland is expected to take on is at least 20,000 refugees. Individual people and families have already volunteered to accommodate refugees, but the Government’s invocation of emergency powers will see it make use of the myriad of vacant properties and hotels in Ireland.

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Speaking on RTÉ Radio One, Minister of State for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Damien English TD said: “We will be looking at vacant properties, we will be looking at hotels and other forms accommodation, temporary accommodation, and more structured accommodation. We will be able to use emergency powers, if need be, under planning laws and supports coming through Europe as well to respond to this.”

“I think it is right that Europe has opened its doors.

Anybody I speak to from around the country would say this is an important response first of all, building on the sanctions, building on the support.”

While nobody would deny that both Covid and the refugees fleeing Ukraine represent separate emergencies, the invocation of the powers has caused controversy in Ireland, primarily over the idea of what does or does not constitute an emergency. In 2019, official homelessness figures in Ireland reached over 10,000, a figure of previously unthought of proportions,

the total number of homeless people accessing emergency accommodation in the State exceeded 9,000 again in November 2021 for the first time since April 2020, totalling 9,099.

If the number of refugees arriving from Ukraine was to hit the halfway point of the estimates of between 20,000 and 100,000 – an unlikely situation – this would leave 69,099 people requiring urgent access to accommodation. With the addition of the estimated 7,000 people living in direct provision, this equates to 76,099 people. Data released by the Dublin Regional Homeless Executive showed there to have been 115 homeless people who died in Dublin in 2021, more than double that of 2019; when such figures are placed beside the vacant dwelling figures and the promises of the invocation of special powers for one group experiencing crisis but not another, they are certain to leave bitter tastes in mouths nationwide, to no fault of the refugees availing of the accommodation rightfully offered to them.

“115 homeless people died in Dublin in 2021, more than double that of 2019; when such figures are placed beside the vacant dwelling figures and the promises of the invocation of special powers for one group experiencing crisis but not another, they are certain to leave bitter tastes in mouths nationwide, to no fault of the refugees availing of the accommodation rightfully offered to them.” for the first time ever; given that these official figures only record the numbers of homeless people who access official government services, the likelihood is that the true number had been above 10,000 for some time before that.

A Dáil response provided by then-Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy TD to Richard Boyd-Barrett TD in July 2019 pointed to estimates by GeoDirectory (a combination of An Post and Ordinance Survey Ireland) that there were 95,076 vacant address points or units in Ireland as of December 2018.

The most recent GeoDirectory Residential Buildings Report (Q4 2021) estimates there to be 90,158 vacant dwellings in Ireland and an additional 22,096 derelict residential units. Following a reduction of homelessness numbers during the Covid-19 pandemic beneath 9,000,

Similarly, with emergency powers appropriately invoked to deal with the pandemic, citizens would be forgiven for asking why they had been so long in coming in healthcare. Figures released before the pandemic, in November 2019, showed the State exhibited hospital waiting lists eight times worse than England relative to population in terms of patients waiting less than a year, and 100 times worse for those waiting over a year; these figures were recorded after a fall in total numbers due to spending of €75 million by the National Treatment Purchase Fund, purchasing private treatments for those on waiting lists.

Waiting lists then had over 600,000 patients; over 900,000 were reported to be waiting in September 2021.

It is conceivable that this too constitutes an emergency that requires the opening of temporary hospitals.

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Cathaoirleach Mark Daly: Minority voices, major changes Cathaoirleach of Seanad Éireann Mark Daly alongside Senator David Norris, and former President Mary Robinson at event to mark the centenary of the Seanad.

As Seanad Éireann prepares to mark its centenary in late 2022, Cathaoirleach of the upper house of the Oireachtas, Senator Mark Daly, discusses the importance of its function in providing a platform for minority voices and progress on reform.

Daly, the second youngest individual to hold the office of Cathaoirleach and the first Kerry native to do so, admits that what would have ordinarily been a steep learning curve was exacerbated by the pandemic.

Elected as the 24th Cathaoirleach on 29 June 2020, Daly’s time in office has been uniquely framed by the country’s Covid-19 response, a scenario in which he could not rely on the guidance of his predecessors. However, his work to date, not least on implementing reform and renewal, as well as planning the chamber’s centenary celebrations, have been well informed by his long-term

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association with the Seanad, to which he was first elected in 2007.

Interestingly, instead of lamenting the pandemic’s impact on his office, Daly embraced the experience as an opportunity for detailed analysis of the backlog of reports on Seanad reform and renewal. Published over several decades, the most recent was the report and draft Bill from the Government-established Seanad Reform Implementation Group (SRIG) in December 2018.

Daly explains that with the support of all leaders and groups in the Seanad, his office has set about implementing the

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“The seventh amendment to the constitution is the only referendum put to the people and passed by the people which has not been enacted by successive governments.”

Cathaoirleach Mark Daly

relevant reforms recommended by these reports which are within its power. For instance, for the first time ever, the Seanad must now review the recommendations of parliamentary reports six months after they have been published and hold the relevant minister and chair of committee to account on those actions which have not been progressed.

Another part of recent Seanad renewal is increased engagement with the public and Seanad nominating bodies such as charities, trade unions, farmers organisation, businesses, and cultural and education sectors on issues of concern to them, which are now being addressed in the Seanad Panel Forums.

The first high-profile forum focused on the topic of ending the practice of nondisclosure agreements by universities which silence victims and protect the guilty allowing the abuse to continue, with the Government now committed to bringing in legislation to address the problem.

Additionally, the Cathaoirleach has acted on the 2015 Seanad reform report by Maurice Manning which noted that Ireland’s MEPs find themselves without a formal connection to the political structures. As such, on a constituency basis, MEPs are invited to debate and engage with senators on European developments through an audience in the House.

However, as Daly explains, not all necessary reforms are in the gift of the Seanad, namely reform of the electoral

system. “To the best of my knowledge, the seventh amendment to the Constitution is the only referendum put to the people and passed by the people which has not been enacted by successive governments,” explains Daly, who believes that the centenary would be a timely moment for government to support legislation giving effect to the amendment which passed referendum over 40 years ago and which would increase the right to vote in a reformed Seanad election from 150,000 voters to potentially millions of citizens.

Additionally, the Cathaoirleach is lobbying for change around the role the Seanad could play in the scrutiny of EU legislation.

A constant theme of successive reform reports, Daly explains that he would like to see a shift from the current practice of ministers having total authority to transpose EU Directives through statutory instruments. “In essence what that means is that ministers and their departments add to EU legislation and signing it into Irish law, without consulting TDs, senators, and parliamentary committees, thereby bypassing the democratic process.

“These EU Laws should be subject to scrutiny by the Seanad and Oireachtas in a renewed process,” he adds.

Centenary In February 2022, the Cathaoirleach launched Seanad100: Minority Voices, Major Changes, a programme of events to commemorate and celebrate the centenary of Seanad Éireann.

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“The Seanad must continue to be the chamber which challenges the status quo.”

Daly believes that the centenary represents an ideal platform to mark and raise awareness of the Seanad’s purpose.

“Going back into the history books, our purpose was to represent the unionist, protestant, and loyalist community which found itself on the southern side of the border after partition, to make sure that as a minority, it had a voice and a platform in the new state. Over time, it has evolved to give different minorities and communities a forum for their views,” he says.

“Established during the civil war, the Senate played a role in establishing and consolidating the democratic institution of the State. It has been stated that the first Senate was the most diverse bunch of politicians Ireland has ever had and over time it has continued to facilitate calls for change which societies and governments were not yet ready or willing to make.”

The origins of the Seanad framed the centenary programme, explains Daily.

“When you look at what was happening here in the south, where minority communities were being given a disproportionate representation in our new State, compared to what was happening in the North, it shows that the founders of the new state were looking to do things differently.”

The Cathaoirleach emphasises that while the intentions of the original Senate – “to frustrate the government” – have moved on, the upper house continues to represent marginal and minority voices. For this reason, the programme was opened by former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and Senator David Norris, the longest continuously serving seanadóir.

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“President Mary Robinson and Senator David Norris are two of the most distinguished members of the Seanad over the last 100 years. Together they have more than 50 years of unbroken service that embodies the Minority Voices, Major Changes Programme. Their contributions during their time as seanadóirí made a lasting impact on the history and daily life of the nation and the State.”

The programme is set to include an exhibition, lectures, a TV documentary, themed tours of Leinster House, Culture Night events and student debates to highlight the contribution the Seanad has made since 1922, ahead of a 100th Anniversary Ceremonial Sitting in December 2022.

Reflecting on how the Seanad can remain relevant for the next 100 years, Daly asserts that continued evolution is key, again pointing to the importance of implementation of the seventh amendment to the Constitution. “It has to address the issue of having broader franchise but at the same time striking a balance so that it continues to represent minority views and voices,” he states.

“What electoral reform looks like is a decision for the government, but the Seanad must continue to be the chamber which challenges the status quo. In a world where democracy is under threat, we have got to make sure that we preserve, protect, and ensure relevance for our democratic institutions.”

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TRADE UNION DESK Although successive Irish governments have repeatedly signed up to and supported a Just Transition, there has been a failure to date to reflect this commitment in policy and in the official response across affected communities, writes the Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ Macdara Doyle.

Ireland signed the 2015 Paris Agreement – which spoke of ‘the imperative of a Just Transition’ – and more recently we attached our name to the Just Transition Pledge that emerged from COP26.

As a member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) since 1923, Ireland is also party to the crucial guidelines drawn up by that body on the implementation of a just transition.

As a global, tripartite body comprised of trade unions, employers and national governments, guidelines that emerge from the ILO tend to reflect a significant degree of international consensus. The United Nations has called for all countries to embrace the ILO guidelines “as the minimum standard to ensure progress and decent work for all”.

This global framework embodies a number of key components, with respect to the transition process, social dialogue, the creation of decent work, access to appropriate skills training, timely and proactive interventions in regions or industries, enhanced social protection for worker, and communities impacted by the low carbon transition.

The newly formed Just Transition Alliance is now seeking to ensure that official commitments match policy and practice, in communities across the country.

Founding members of the Alliance include; Irish Congress of Trade Unions, SIPTU, Fórsa, Friends of the Earth, Stop Climate Chaos, and TASC. We need a just transition to protect and create jobs, reduce emissions, enhance

living standards, safeguard and restore biodiversity, and generate new opportunities to help build sustainable, resilient communities across the country.

Job losses and lower living standards are not the automatic outcome of the zerocarbon transition. Rather, they result from bad planning and poor policy. The fastest, fairest, and most effective transition is one that is inclusive, protects workers and communities and delivers new opportunities for all.

The concept of just transition emerged from within the global trade union movement and provides the most comprehensive framework to deliver the carbon transition. According to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC): “A just transition secures the future and livelihoods of workers and their communities in the transition to a zerocarbon economy. It is based on social dialogue between workers and their unions, employers, government, and communities. A plan for just transition provides and guarantees better and decent jobs, social protection, more training opportunities, and greater job security for all workers affected by global warming and climate change policies.”

To date, the experience of the low carbon transition process in Ireland has been overwhelmingly negative.

While extraordinary sacrifices have been demanded of peat workers and Midlands communities, this has not been matched by the required supports from

government or state agencies, in a manner consistent with just transition.

This contrasts sharply with far more positive experience of transition for workers and communities in Spain, German, and Australia, for example.

Unless this is addressed the transition process risks becoming synonymous with job loss and lower living standards and will lead to an erosion of worker confidence and public support. To do so, policymakers must adopt the language and the substance of just transition.

The first step is to establish a National Just Transition Commission, based on social dialogue and comprised of representatives of government, trade unions, employers, affected communities and civil society. The Commission would be tasked with developing the national framework for just transition covering the entire economy, in line with the ILO guidelines.

While the Climate Action Plan commits to creating a commission, the schedule set out in the CAP means it would not happen until late 2023.

Ireland is already a just transition laggard and further delay will do irreparable damage to the process here. Scotland established a social dialogue-based Just Transition Commission in 2019. It delivered its blueprint in 2021 and Scotland now has a Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work charged with overseeing that plan. We’re still waiting.

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”

Meet the

Sally Hayden With a primary focus on migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises, Sally Hayden is an awardwinning freelance journalist who has had stories and photojournalism republished on six continents. Currently working as the Africa correspondent for The Irish Times, Hayden’s new book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route was published in March 2022.

How did you get into journalism?

I studied law and international politics, but did a few internships during university, in the BBC and the Santa Barbara Independent, and I wrote for the university newspapers. In 2013, I won the Simon Cumbers student award, which pays for student journalists to travel to a developing country to report (I went to Malawi) and assigns you a mentor (I got Paddy Smyth at The Irish Times). Since then, I’ve been working for The Irish Times as well as a range of other places

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including VICE, The Guardian, the Thomson Reuters Foundation, The Washington Post, the Financial Times, CNN, BBC, TIME, and the New York Times. My first staff job was at VICE News in London, right when it was being set up, which was very interesting.

How do you think the profession is evolving?

Rates are going down and the industry is largely reliant on the contribution of young freelancers who often work alone, without much support or oversight. But

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Rates are going down and the industry is largely reliant on the contribution of young freelancers who often work alone, without much support or oversight.

I’m hoping that readers continue to realise that the more they pay for news the better the quality will be, and I’m grateful for publications, like The Irish Times, that continue to invest in foreign coverage. The internet has given us huge opportunities as reporters too; both to hear from people that were previously much harder to contact and to have our reporting consumed across the world.

What are the challenges of working freelance?

I don’t think people realise how alone you are most of the time. I research and pitch stories; organise my own logistics; take my own photos; sometimes pay for travel myself. You have to rely a lot on your own sense of what is important, and sometimes that means keeping on a story even when you can’t find somewhere to publish it. You also don’t have defined work days and non-work days. I only rarely have a full day off.

Who do you admire most within the industry and why?

There are far too many people to name, but among the inspiring female journalists I’ve been lucky enough to work directly with are Becky Anderson, Christiane Amanpour, Hannah Strange, and Paola Totaro. In The Irish Times, I hugely appreciate my editors Chris Dooley and Dave McKechnie, who are smart with a good news sense, but also kind, which is very important when you’re doing this kind of work. I was lucky to get endorsements for my book from another set of heroes, including Jon

Lee Anderson, Michela Wrong, Mark Bowden, Miriam O'Callaghan, Fintan O'Toole, Lindsey Hilsum, John Sweeney, Oliver Bullough, and Christina Lamb.

supported Libyan coastguard. While

What has been your most significant story or project to date?

Sweden, and Tunisia, and spent time on

My book, My Fourth Time, We Drowned, relies on almost five years of reporting on refugees and migrants attempting to reach Europe from North Africa. It is centred around years of communication with some of the tens of thousands of refugees and migrants who were locked up indefinitely in Libyan detention centres which have been compared to concentration camps, after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea but were intercepted by the EU-

reporting for it I travelled to countries including Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Malta, Luxembourg, a rescue ship patrolling off the Libyan coast. It is published by 4th Estate, HarperCollins, and available in bookshops or as an eBook from March 31.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I read a lot (both nonfiction and novels), go to the gym, and see friends. Nothing very exciting. I’m travelling a lot for work at the moment and usually when I get time off, I’m pretty exhausted.

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Political Platform Christopher O’Sullivan TD After serving as a county councillor for 13 years, in which time he served as Mayor of County Cork, Christopher O’Sullivan was elected as Fianna Fáil TD for Cork South West in February 2020. A keen birder and volunteer whale watching guide, the Clonakilty native is his party’s spokesperson on environment, climate action, and biodiversity as well as the parliamentary party’s Ógra liaison.

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How did your political career begin?

I became a county councillor in June 2007 when I was coopted to membership of Cork County council.

Earlier this year I requested in the Dáil chamber the establishment of a Citizens’ Assembly on biodiversity. The assembly has already held its first meetings. The rate of biodiversity loss in this country is alarming and this will be a

What are your most notable achievements in the Oireachtas to date?

The work that the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action committee does is incredibly important, and I am happy with the role I have played in that work to date. Most notably the passing of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2021. This is for me perhaps the most important piece of legislation that has been passed through the Houses of the Oireachtas in decades. Climate change is and will be the biggest issue for this and future generations.

This legislation enshrined in law carbon emission reduction targets for the first time. We embarked on hours upon hours of pre-legislative scrutiny in in order to produce legislation that has been very highly regarded internationally.

key tool in reversing this loss.

What is unique about representing the Cork South-West constituency?

Certainly, the size for one. For example, it would take twoand-a-half hours to drive from Kinsale in the east of the constituency to the Dursey Sound in the west of the constituency. Also, I doubt if anywhere else boasts such a rich number of talented musicians and artists. It is an absolute pleasure to represent such a mixture of people, from farming backgrounds to those who work as IT professionals, alongside some of the most talented musicians and artists in the country.

“I believe that we can be part of another housing revolution through the provision of public houses on public land.”

What are your priorities going forward?

The entire west coast of Ireland, including the coast of Cork, has the potential to provide solutions to both Ireland and Europe’s energy needs. The potential for floating offshore wind, in particular, will see a situation where the west coast of Ireland will provide not only Ireland’s energy needs but we could potentially become a global super power in renewable energy. One of my priorities will be ensuring the correct policies, legislation and measures are in place to let this transition to green energy happen as soon as possible.

I cannot forget my constituency either though. Cork South West is already a flourishing tourist destination; however I believe it has the potential to become the outdoor activity and adventure capital of Europe. Between our mountains in the west and our incredible coastline; I would love to see it become a mecca for hillwalkers, kayakers, whale watchers, and surfers.

How can Fianna Fáil maximise its impact during the lifetime of the current government?

It is often said in our parliamentary meetings in Leinster House that in the 1950s and 1960s, Fianna Fáil was the party that took people out of the slums and out of poverty and built social houses and communities. I believe that we can be part of another housing revolution through the provision of public houses on public land, while also making homes available at an affordable price for first time buyers, in particular. If we achieve this, then it will have a massive positive societal impact. We should also continue to be leaders in climate action.

What are your interests outside the political sphere?

I am a keen birder/birdwatcher and on Sundays in spring and autumn you can find me on headlands and islands looking for rare migrant birds. I also volunteer as a whale watching guide with Atlantic Whale and Wild Life tours from Courtmacsherry and this really helps me escape the world of politics from time to time.

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The principal of protecting your source NUJ General Secretary, Michelle Stanistreet, discusses the union’s support of Chris Mullin, at a time when honest reporting is at threat.

Journalism’s import and the challenges faced by journalists appeared in stark relief in Chris Mullin’s struggle to protect his sources. The investigative reporter, who went on to become an MP and government minister, uncovered the miscarriage of justice that jailed six men for the 1973 Birmingham pub bombings. Mullin faced the potential of jail for keeping his word.

In 1991 the Appeal Court ruled that, after 16 years incarceration, the Birmingham six’s convictions were unsafe. Then Home Secretary Kenneth Baker told the House of Commons: “(Mullin) wrote his book and campaigned. He has every right to feel proud that the convictions have been quashed.”

West Midlands Police (WMP) must account for their own actions, but England’s second largest force certainly has questions to answer. They framed the six men using coercive techniques.

They ignored Mullin’s evidence that others were to blame, and for decades they left the bombings uninvestigated.

Mullin’s tack was different. To prove the six’s innocence, he tracked down the real perpetrators. Promising IRA members he would never reveal confidential sources, he found the bomb planter. Remarkably, he extracted a confession, sufficiently detailed that its veracity is generally accepted.

WMP has been chided into action by the understandably distraught relatives of the 21 bombing casualties. Police have interviewed the suspect, several times. Now resident in Northern

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Ireland, he was, however, unforthcoming. After consistently failing to mount a credible prosecutable investigation, they improbably claimed that unredacted copies of Mullin’s 30 yearold interview notes were key to achieving justice.

Mullin resisted the application for a Production Order sought under the Terrorism Act. He had the support of the NUJ, the union he has been a member of for 50 years. After a hearing at the Old Bailey in February 2022, in March, a court backed Mullin’s failure to comply.

It is clear that Mullin could not comply with an order to hand over his journalistic material, but there existed a troubling possibility that for the second time, WMP showed a preparedness to send the wrong man to jail.

Disturbingly the Terrorism Act is but one of many legal challenges currently frustrating honest reporting. February’s Bloomberg v ZXC judgement outlaws the reporting of individuals being investigated or arrested. Julian Assange’s extradition could place at risk any journalist who offends the US Government, and proposed reforms to the Official Secrets Act threatens to treat journalists like foreign spies.

In all of this, the NUJ will always stand up for journalists and journalism, but we need our allies in civil society more than ever.

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