The United Nations (UN) is to locate two agencies in Dublin to encourage the use of computers and the Internet in developing countries, it has emerged.
Just a week after the Government disclosed plans to decentralise more than 10,000 civil servants from the capital, the Minister for Communications, Mr Dermot Ahern, said last night the UN would open two offices in the city. He said the Government was providing more than €1 million for the initiative and "considerable" human resources.
Mr Ahern's spokesman said about 30 staff will be employed at the headquarters of the Global e-Schools Communication Initiative and Global e-Policy Resource Network agencies. These were the first UN organisations to locate in Ireland, he said.
The e-Schools body aims to foster the use of computers and the Internet in schools in the developing countries. It will operate in Ghana, Namibia, Bolivia and the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
The e-Policy body aims to bring together providers of strategies and policies for electronic government.
Speaking last night at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, Mr Ahern said the initiative was following in the footsteps of Irish and other missionaries who had helped and educated the poor of the Third World.
"The information and communications age is the new industrial revolution," said Mr Ahern.
"These countries, like Ireland in the 19th century, lost out in that revolution.
"Unlike Ireland, they are losing out again. We must now redress that and the UN agencies will be at the cutting edge in that policy," he said.
