£40m for Year 2000 problems mainly for health sector

The Budget allocation of £40 million to tackle the year 2000 (Y2K) problem within the civil service will primarily be earmarked for the health sector. This sector has been repeatedly identified as lacking in adequate funding to prepare itself against the millennium bug, despite a potential threat to lives.

The money will go towards ensuring three broad areas of hospital operations - medical devices, computer information systems and general hospital systems - are Y2K compliant.

According to a Health Department spokesman, it is still in discussions with the Department of Finance about funding for medical devices, which have been identified as the most critical systems.

The most potentially devastating equipment features embedded microchips that are "date aware" or contain electronic clocks. This year the Department of Health spent £5 million on replacing systems and ensuring Y2K compliance within the health sector, and it has budgeted to spend a similar amount next year.

However, members of the Southern Health Board were recently told a "worst case scenario" would cost health boards up to £50 million to replace critical systems. These include infusion pumps, pacemaker monitors, heart defibrillators and X-ray machines.

Last night, a spokesman for the Government's interdepartmental Y2K monitoring committee said the £40 million allocation would establish a contingency fund to top up the health sector's additional requirements over its normal expenditure programme for equipment replacement.

As yet, he said, the health sector had not established all the replacement costs it may have, and while it had identified much of the problem machinery, it hadn't fully validated the overall cost.

Any money that does not go towards the health sector will most likely be distributed to local authorities and government utilities which find themselves in a similar position.

In a separate technology announcement, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, set aside £12 million for a new public-private partnership investment to link into a broadband submarine cable between the US and Europe. It will provide high-speed Internet access for the State and was one of the 10 recommendations stemming from the report of the high-level Telecoms Advisory Committee last month.

It represents a move by Government to stimulate investment in broadband connectivity in Ireland over the next three years, at an estimated cost of £60 million. According to a spokesman at the Department of Public Enterprise, there are no private partners on board yet, but under the partnership arrangement it is planned a consortium of local and global telecommunications operators will pull together to leverage greater buying capacity.

The spokesman said it is possible the full £12 million will not be required if enough private investors come on board, but the gesture symbolised the Government's anxiety to ensure enough broadband capacity is available in advance of demand.

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, last night welcomed the announcement, saying: "Electronic commerce will be worth $350 billion within two years and it is vital that Ireland has the telecommunications links to cash in on this phenomenal growth."