If the Government's Year 2000 (Y2K) special business awareness campaign was hoping to reach a crescendo last week, then the event to mark it was nothing short of disappointing.
The national Y2K conference held in the O'Reilly Hall in UCD, promised to be an auspicious event. Guest speakers included Mr Don Cruickshank, chairman of the British government's Action 2000 taskforce, and Mr Chris Moore, IBM's Y2K expert for Western Europe. The most attractive draw, however, was the keynote speech by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
To date, evidence of the Taoiseach's efforts to address the potentially catastrophic millennium bug problem has been thin on the ground. This was an ideal opportunity to rectify the situation. Instead we were treated to yet another this-is-deadly-serious speech. That was all very well nine months ago, but on a day when the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland published results of a survey that found 90 per cent of Irish companies were already aware of the Y2K problem, something more was required.
As Mr Cruickshank later pointed out, most business people who had filled the large auditorium probably had their Y2K projects well under way. It is not in people's nature to attend conferences that only serve as reminders of their oversights. Those in attendance had been hoping to hear, at best, that a large tranche of funding had been set aside to help businesses tackle the problem, and, at worst, further national initiatives were planned to bring companies together to share their experiences.
Even an update on the Government's progress in preparing itself might have offered some reassurance that everything was under control. Would semi-state companies and utilities be ready for the millennium changeover? Can we rest assured we will have water, energy and transport on January 1st, 2000.
It would have been encouraging to receive an update on the percentage preparedness of civil service departments and their offshoots. Instead we were told that while the Taoiseach was "satisfied" the relevant departments were in a "healthy position in terms of identifying the problems and the resources required to deal with them . . . a significant amount of work remains to be done to achieve Year 2000 compliance".
It was a pity then that a prior engagement forced Mr Ahern to miss Mr Cruickshank's later address. The former managing director of Virgin Group, chief executive of the NHS in Scotland, and director general of OFTEL, spoke at length about the British government's taskforce, Action 2000's campaign to advise the British public on how best to tackle the millennium bug. As though it were being presented as a foil to the Government's efforts, we were told how the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has allocated £100 million of government funds to tackling Y2K. The Government spent £100,000 on a special business awareness campaign last May, and has already said it will not commit any further public funding to the millennium problem as it is "primarily a business problem".
Action 2000 received £17 million of the £100 million allocation, and it is currently spending £10 million on a communications strategy. This covers television advertising, poster sites and publicity urging the public to "Beat the Bug" by ringing its action line.
Funding has been allocated to provide training and access to relevant parties handling the problem, with an end reward of Y2K certification. Accredited personnel can then be employed to pass on their information and expertise within a network of similar companies. Now Action 2000 has been asked to lend its support to the Government's campaign here to get businesses to tackle the Y2K problem. In the absence of public funding here, it remains unclear how hanging on the coat-tails of Britain's practical efforts will help see our economy into the new millennium. In his speech Mr Cruickshank optimistically said: "We are in constant touch with Action 2000's equivalent organisations all over the world to learn from each other's experiences, and I am looking forward to learning more about Ireland's progress and plans."
Take a number and join the queue, Mr Cruickshank.
