IT expenditure and failure – submission to public expenditure consultation

Re: Government Expenditure Review

Dear Minister,

I’m writing someone who has worked in various ways with government over the last several years, in particular in relation to technological projects. Principally these were:

  • postcodes (through my role with NSAI/ICTSCC)
  • various transport IT projects, including the integrated ticketing system, ‘real time passenger information’, and the ‘travel planner’.

Without exception the outcome from these projects has been disastrous. The problems were perfectly forseeable. My conclusion is that our whole procurement system is broken and this is actually damaging our country. This is not just about spending too much, it’s also about total failure to deliver.

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GIS Ireland 2005

I’m speaking tomorrow (Tuesday) at GIS Ireland 2005 on the topic of international practice around postcodes. Should be interesting to talk to to this specialized audience on the topic.

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Coding the Post

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just glance at an address and instantly know exactly what part of your area the address was located in? I spent most of the weekend and yesterday writing a proposal for a postcode system for Ireland which would allow you to do just that. It was in response to ComReg’s consultation paper on the topic. A dirtier job than you might imagine, with many numeric, geographic, linguistic and even political twists. But got there in the end.
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