"Only One Year Left to Fix It" - Minister Treacy Taoiseach to Address Nationa Conference on Year 2000 Computer Problem.

T he advent of the 9th September 1998 will see one more full year before "Infinity Day", known by its computer date as "990909", which means that numeric date fields containing two digit years will hold a value of all nines. It will also only be a further 114 days beyond that to the 1st January, 2000 ("000101").

The full impact of the 9th September 1999 or 990909 will only become clear on the day. Like the 1st January 2000 or 000101, it has a significance going well beyond the date itself. For fields containing values of all nines were assigned a use by computer programmers a long time ago; it was to represent or infinity in some computer language programs. In certain circumstances, a program encountering high-values in a date field may treat this as an end of file, a stop value, or as a non-existent or impossible value and may behave unexpectedly or fail. How quickly we have reached infinity!

Commentators have predicted that the 9th September next year could see unanticipated hiccoughs in computer systems and computer-controlled equipment of a similar sort to those forecast for 1st January 2000, although this is more likely to occur in older legacy systems. Let us hope this will not be the case.

But more than that, let us be determined that it be so. We have, in effect, one more year to confront and overcome the problems associated with computer related date changes.

• One more year to check and, if necessary, fix and test our computer systems;
• one more year to check, fix and test our production and process control systems;
• one more year to check, fix and test our financial and administrative control systems;
• one more year to check, fix and test our support systems, the Alarms on our premises, the life-saving equipment in our hospitals, the lifts in our buildings, the mobile phones which we find so indispensable;
• one more year to check out the Y2K compliance status of our customers and suppliers, especially those overseas, and to do something about it;
• one more year to develop and test contingency plans to deal with any unanticipated Y2K failures to either our own systems or those of our key customers and suppliers, especially those arising from items overlooked in the course of Y2K programmes.

For if we can say with some confidence that the awareness of the Y2K and associated problem of 990909 is now quite apparent, we cannot, as yet, be sure that is being taken on a sufficiently large-scale.

This is why the will address a National Conference on the Year 2000 Problem in O'Reilly Hall, UCD on the 9th September 1998. The Taoiseach will inaugurate a year of intense activity by Irish business, small, medium and large scale, to confront the millennium bug issue, to ensure that recent prosperity and continuing economic progress on this island of Ireland is not derailed.

I invite anyone interested to come along on that day. The conference opens at 2pm.