The Information Society Commission (ISC) has called on the government to make speedy progress in choosing a partner to provide a high-capacity transatlantic telecommunications link.
In its second annual report, the ISC says the next National Development Plan needs to establish targets for the roll-out of a broadband telecommunications infrastructure if Ireland is to develop as an e-commerce centre.
It says this will only be achieved if low-cost local access to high speed telecommunications is made available, and a fully inclusive approach is taken, instead of the tendency to concentrate on urban population centres.
The report, published yesterday, also called for increased use of the radio spectrum, and the development of digital terrestrial television services in Ireland before competitors from other jurisdictions overwhelm the market.
ISC chairwoman Ms Vivienne Jupp said: "The national priority now is for the Government to implement its information society action plan."
And she warned that in the private sector bankers needed to grasp e-commerce and electronic payments, if overseas organisations were not to take over the market. "The ISC will now focus on State-wide access, and increasing awareness among small and medium-sized enterprises," she added.
In the past year Ireland's ranking has slipped back from 21st to 22nd position in the IDC/World Times Information Society Index. However, Ms Jupp pointed out that Ireland had actually gained points in all of the categories, but it had been outperformed by some of the other 55 participating countries.
"We need to look at the progress of other countries. We could say we have achieved an awful lot in the last year, but we need to continue to do so at a much speedier level," Ms Jupp said.
The ISC is particularly concerned that small and medium enterprises will fail to grasp the e-commerce opportunity, and it has called for the approved Digital Parks in Dublin's Docklands and City West Business Park to be "progressed as a matter of priority".
The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment could take the lead by developing a national e-commerce strategy, while the report recommended the establishment of a software research and development fund based along the lines of the Education Technology Investment Fund.
The ISC highlighted the need to establish a proper legal and regulatory environment for e-commerce. Although it welcomed Ireland's progress on cryptography and electronic signatures, it said the Government should prioritise drafting a Civil Evidence Bill which would allow for the admissibility of electronic communications as evidence in civil proceedings. This follows the recommendations of the Labour Relations Commission.
The ISC's will focus on inclusiveness and wealth creation through e-commerce during the next 12 months. To do so it is establishing three new advisory groups to concentrate on IT access, content, and benchmarking and research.
Plans are underway to work with the National Centre for Technology in Education to educate the wider community on e-commerce and its potential. A joint initiative with IBEC will target SMEs' e-commerce awareness in the internationally traded sectors.
Local awareness of the information society will raised through regional media coverage of locally based events, and there are plans for a follow up series to the Tech TV series which ran on RTE.
The report recommends that Bord Failte launch an initiative to encourage airports and hotels to provide access points to accommodate the business traveller. For its part, the ISC has undertaken to make Internet access more widely available to citizens on the periphery of the information society.
