One Of The Most Important Management Tasks To Be Tackled - Taoiseach

Mr. Noel Treacy T.D. Minister for Science, Technology and Commerce today, (Wednesday 9th September 1998) hosted a National Conference on the Year 2000 Computer Problem in O'Reilly Hall, UCD, Dublin.

Making the keynote address, An Taoiseach, Mr. Bertie Ahern T.D. said "Every business has to face up to this challenge and deal with it. Everyone must presume that aspects of their business operations will be in danger of malfunction. This points to an urgent need for action now, to safeguard the smooth running of business activity. The Government is taking action to ensure that its services will continue and many businesses have already taken steps to ensure that they will be unaffected. One thing which we can say for certain, is that it will affect everyone to some extent. It is the great uncertainty of what exactly will be affected and how, that has given rise to such concern on the subject".

Other speakers at the Year 2000 conference were -Mr. Chris Moore, IBM's Y2K Executive for Western Europe, - Mr. Don Cruickshank, Chairman of the British Government's Action 2000 Campaign, - Mr. Liam Kelly of the Irish Computer Society. Minister Treacy stressed "We have, in effect just barely a year to confront and overcome the many problems associated with computer related date changes, Only 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 ALL 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 the "Milleniun Bug" is now quite apparent, we cannot, as yet, be sure that ACTION is being taken on a sufficiently large-scale."

Speaking at the Conference Mr Don Cruickshank, Chairman of Action 2000 said "It is an indication of how important this matter is, that the Taoiseach is giving this matter his personal attention."

Mr Cruickshank continued "We are in 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. The Bug doesn't recognise the Irish sea. We are also aware that government departments in the Republic are in touch with their Northern Ireland counterparts, and I encourage such cross-border co-operation so that the island of Ireland tackles the issue head on."

Mr. Liam Kelly gave details of an awareness survey conducted by the Society and the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland into how SME's are dealing with the Year 2000 problem. This survey highlighted a strong level of awareness of the issue but identified a worrying level of follow up action by many of the businesses concerned.

Mr Chris Moore said "Todays conference is an excellent example of the coming together of private and public sector to tackle this Year 2000 challenge and IBM is pleased to support these kinds of initiatives, which are an increasing occurrence world-wide."

In his concluding remarks Minister Treacy emphasised the urgency of the problem and the fact that it was the responsibility of individual businesses to ensure that their systems were year 2000 compliant. Minister said "I would like to emphasise that the Government cannot solve this problem for you. Our role has been to create awareness of the issue and alert the Business Community nationwide about the problem. Individual enterprises must urgently get to work now to identify the issues in their own areas and devise solutions."