Technology 'Key To Future', Says Wilson

Increasing the use of sophisticated telecommunications is vital in making more efficient use of time and resources, the NI Minister for Finance and Personnel Sammy Wilson has said.

Speaking during a visit to eircomNI's headquarters in Belfast, where he celebrated the completion of the implementation phase of the Network NI project and toured their state-of-the-art video conferencing facility, the Minister thanked those involved in the project.

The Minister said: 'I warmly congratulate eircomNI on their partnership with my Department which has enabled a speedy, efficient and successful roll-out of the Network NI (NNI) project across 300 sites in Northern Ireland to date."

The Network NI project was launched in early 2006 to purchase, through an aggregated approach, broadband services for the NICS, it replaces existing Departmental based wide area data networks with a single supplier managed network serving all of the NICS."

The Minister added: "This has been a hugely important and influential project. It has established a modern and efficient network infrastructure to support and meet the growing business needs of the NI Civil Service and those of its key reform projects such as Records NI, HR Connect and Account NI."

The Minister also had the opportunity to view the eircomNI video conferencing facility which is used by the company to link with other sites across the UK and Ireland.

Acknowledging the growing use of the medium in public and private sectors across the world, the Minister added: "Having seen eircom's video technology in action I can clearly appreciate why video conferencing is fast becoming an important and valuable tool in today’s fast-paced world.

"The use of video technology reduces the need to travel to meetings, which in a time of tightening budgets and increased pressure to reduce travel and subsistence, makes much more efficient use of valuable staff resources."

Also commenting, Darren Lemon, General Manager eircom NI, said: "We are delighted to have successfully delivered the implementation phase of the £70million Network NI project.

"Together eircom NI and the NICS are putting robust communications centre-stage in the drive to improve province-wide workplace efficiency, enhance citizen-centric services and reduce the cost of delivering government service.

"eircom has invested significantly in our operation here over the past several years, putting in place the world class experts, service operations and infrastructure to provide a dynamic and robust telecommunications service to the local market, including the provision of cutting edge telepresence tool," he concluded.

(BMcC/GK)