Four towns have been short listed by Telecom Eireann in the hotly-contested competition for a £15 million information technology package, including the installation of a PC (personal computer) in every home. Ennis, Castlebar, Killarney and Kilkenny were chosen from a total of 51 entries from towns with a population of between 5,000 and 30,000, in what Telecom described yesterday as a unique project by international standards.
The winner is expected to be announced in mid-September.
Mr Gerry O'Sullivan, Telecom Eireann's head of corporate relations, said other countries had chosen towns where every home would be hooked up to the Internet, for example, but the scale of Telecom's project was more comprehensive.
In the winning "Information Age Town", Telecom will install a telephone, personal computer and voice-mail facility in every home, all businesses will get ISDN data lines and public services will be available electronically.
Mr O'Sullivan said the town would also be equipped with "smart cards" for banking as well as video-conferencing, to avoid the need for foreign travel - something which might not exactly appeal to junket-conscious councillors.
He said the level of interest in the contest was "extraordinarily high" and it seemed to have "galvanised" whole communities, bringing together more people and sectors than anything else, even the annual Tidy Towns competition.
Telecom was "incredibly impressed" by the high standard of the entries and, to recognise the 47 towns which did not make the shortlist, it would install a multimedia PC, with Internet access, in selected schools.
Some of the towns, including Ennis, hired consultants to help prepare their submissions.
But most of them relied on their own resources, drawing on the local authorities, the business community and even teenage computer buffs.
Mr O'Sullivan said the aim of the competition was to "kick-start the information age agenda" and ensure that Ireland could capitalise on it. Telecom also had an obvious interest in broadening its customer base.
Killarney responded by setting up KATE - an acronym for Killarney and Telecom Eireann, the "dream team" - to co-ordinate its entry and even put up signs declaring itself as "applicant for Telecom Eireann's Information Age Town".
Mr Kevin Moynihan said that of the four short-listed towns, it was the farthest away from Dublin, but plugging into information technology would eliminate that distance as well as providing a "shop window" for tourists.
Castlebar's slogan is that its people have "made a date with the future", according to Mr Richard Wynne, who said the town which eventually won the competition was likely to become a "hotbed" for technology-based industry.
Ms Pamela Wall, representing Ennis, said the enthusiasm in her town had been largely generated by younger people, almost half of whom had home PCs. Their attitude was "thank goodness someone is doing something about this".
Mr John McGuinness, former mayor of Kilkenny, said the competition offered an opportunity to overcome the problem of "information technology being parked over here, while the people are over there" not knowing very much about it.
Mr O'Sullivan agreed that the enthusiastic response to the competition was helping to deal with "techno-fear" and he believed that the winning "Information Age Town" would play a huge role in breaking down barriers.
He denied that the 30,000 population ceiling represented discrimination against larger towns and cities, saying that smaller communities in the Dublin area - such as Bray, Leixlip and Malahide - had entered the competition.
Final judging is to take place during the last week in August and the first week of September, with the assessors spending a day in each of the shortlisted towns.
