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Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton TD says he has written to government colleagues to “establish a cross-government implementation group on cloud computing.”
The news came as part of a speech given by Mr Bruton at a cloud computing conference organised by Public Affairs Ireland in Dublin this week. According to Mr Bruton the 'sole focus' of the group will be to assist and support the implementation of the Programme for Government commitment on
cloud computing.
“Ireland is extremely well-placed to take advantage of the rapidly-growing international potential of cloud computing … Now more than ever we must do everything we can to seize opportunities like this,' said Mr Bruton.
A Microsoft report published earlier this year, entitled “Ireland’s Competitiveness and Jobs Opportunity: Cloud Computing”, said that Ireland had the potential to restore its competitiveness, create jobs and gain a "disproportionately large share" of the global cloud computing market, which the report estimated to be worth 40 billion euro by 2014.
At the launch of that report in January Mr Paul Rellis, Managing Director of Microsoft Ireland, said, “Cloud computing can be the new IFSC (International Financial Services Centre) if the incoming government moves quickly to implement the correct policy requirements to deliver it.”
Speaking this week Mr Bruton said “These jobs will not be created automatically, and government must act decisively and urgently if we are to position Ireland as a world leader in this high-growth sector.” In May Mr Bruton announced the establishment of a 5 million euro applied research centre in cloud computing, which according to the Minister will “bring industry and researchers in this sector together in order to turn good ideas into good jobs.”
The government as a leading user of IT is expected to take a leading role in the take up of cloud computing services and thus provide opportunities and economies of scale for growing businesses in this sector. Mr Bruton says that the Programme for Government “contains a commitment to implement an ambitious series of policies to achieve this.”
“That is why I have written to government colleagues proposing the establishment of a cross-government implementation group to support the implementation of the Programme for Government commitment,” said Mr Bruton.
It is hoped that the group will include representatives of all government departments and
agencies responsible for all aspects of IT.
“Government does not create jobs: growing businesses do, but government has
a key role in creating the environment where those businesses can grow and
create the jobs … with ambitious policies and determined action from government we
can get jobs and growth back in the economy again,” concluded Mr Bruton.
