A Town Of The Future

Here is a town that has spent much of the summer whipping itself into a fever pitch, and by the second week in September it will all reach a climax. For during those seven days Clare may once more win the all-Ireland hurling championship, Ennis will be inspected by the judges from the all-Europe tidy town, and its denizens will welcome the assessment team from the Telecom Eireann Information Age Town competition.

"Oh, we're confident," says Mr T.J. Waters, head of the town's Chamber of Commerce, a self-confessed "hurling purist", and one of the driving forces behind the Ennis bid to be wired to the future.

"Hopefully the hurlers can do it again. As for the Information Age Town - I've never seen any project that has galvanised the community like this one," he adds.

It started last October, when the Clare Champion picked up on some rumours that Telecom Eireann was looking for a town that would be a showcase and a guinea pig for the coming wave of information technology. The paper ran an editorial saying Ennis should put itself forward.

"The concept seemed a bit alien at first. Then we started to think about what it would mean. The more we thought, the more we wanted it," says Mr Waters.

Ennis was ready with a plan when Telecom Eireann formally announced the competition earlier this year, and the Chamber of Commerce and the Clare county clerk attended the launch.

"We gathered as much information as we could, including a video, and called a public meeting. We went out of our way to encourage key people, from across the community, to that meeting, and you could see the interest starting to bubble up," says Mr Waters.

He says the business community did not feel it had the expertise to co-ordinate the project and decided to hire a firm of consultants.

"The document we got from Farrell, Grant, Sparks is extremely useful for our town, whether we win or lose," he says. "It is very much a live document, our strategy for the future."

In the meantime, the local press and radio station were pounding away at the story, generating huge interest. Clare FM radio, in particular, knew what it could mean for the station and was chomping at the bit.

"The provision of new technology through the Information Age for Ennis showcase would allow Clare FM to provide a better quality broadcasting service and explore the possibilities of offering a service to exiles around the world. This would have particular reference to specialist programmes - traditional music, sport and documentaries," its management said.

Surveys revealed that Ennis had a significantly higher than average use of computers and the Internet. According to the figures, there are computers in over half of all homes of primary or secondary students; Internet access of a fifth of those households with computers; a high level of technology within business and the public sector; and a rapid up-take in the innovative use of technology.

The Chamber of Commerce and the Urban District Council attracted more and more people to the project. Youth bodies, adult education committees, Rotarians, Gaelic games clubs, Travellers' organisations, scouts, teachers, pupils and dozens of other groups threw their weight behind the bid. Everyone, it seemed, could see something in it that would change their own lives.

"Should ISDN become available in conjunction with video conferencing equipment, it should be possible for to link to other studios all over the world, allowing simultaneous recording sessions with musicians everywhere, without the musicians having to travel to one location," said Harmony Road Recording Studios.

"Having spoken to other B & B and guesthouse owners, perhaps the setting up of a guest directory, room availability and information service linked to each other and also to the tourist office," would be beneficial said one homeowner offering B & B.

"The provision of an ISDN line will greatly improve the efficiency of data transfer between OLM and our sister company in the Raheen industrial estate, and also with our head office in France. Communications costs will be reduced and response times improved," said one local business.

"In the science and technology areas, a state-of-the-art communications system would enable the transmission and exchange of data - collected by remote sensors - between Ennis schools and schools on the continent.

The project organisers set up an Information Age Town office, complete with Internet-linked computer, offering familiarisation classes for newcomers. This week, the office moved to a new location in the shopping centre.

Those behind the bid had the consultants come up with a strategic plan for the town.

"Ennis proposes that the Information Society will focus on five flagship pillars," the document reads. It includes:

The establishment of the town as a centre of excellence in three disciplines of lifelong learning, healthcare and teleworking, with three to four initiatives within each.

The development and positioning of Ennis as a centre for telecommunications dependent industries and new media, including multimedia, online services and telephony.

The positioning of Ennis nationally and internationally as the Irish and European test bed for emerging technologies and services.

The establishment of Ennis as the centre for raising awareness nationally on the information society.

The establishment of a state-of-the-art Internet service provider centre on site, facilitating the full range of Internet and on-line services and the creation of a sophisticated, information-rich and service-intensive "Ennis System", to which the general public in Ennis would have free access.

For his part, T.J. Waters expects the Information Age to change a regular feature on RTE radio - the traffic report where there is always "heavy congestion on the Limerick-Ennis road".

This article concludes the series.

What the project entails

From the original 46 applications, Telecom Eireann has shortlisted four Irish communities for its Information Age Town competition. They are Castlebar, Kilkenny, Killarney and Ennis. The winner will be announced in the middle of September.

The chosen town will see all of its homes, schools, businesses and hospitals equipped and wired with the latest technology, making it a showcase for the communications of the future.

every home will have a state-of-the-art telephone, with voice-mail and other services. Each business will have a high-speed ISDN connection to the Internet. Every child, from the age of five, will have access to a computer, and most households will be hooked up to the World Wide Web.

Public services, from libraries to hospitals, will make optimum use of the latest technologies. In total, Telecom Eireann will spend £15 million on the project.