The Taoiseach, the Revenue and the Department of Justice

— Published April 2nd, 2003  |  by David Moore

Not all eGovernment sites are created equal, as an analysis of the Deparment of the Taioseach's website and those of the Revenue and Department of Justice shows.

The Department of the Taoiseach is driving many of the Information Society initiatives, but its own site is solid without being an example of excellence [http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie]. On the Ministers' list page for example, the email addresses for Bertie and the cabinet are given as 'webmaster@', suggesting it's unlikely your communication will be seen by anyone senior.

No email addresses are given for Ministers of State, with the notable exception of Mary Hanafin, who's responsible for the Information Society projects. Window dressing, anyone?

The News material is confusingly arranged, with subsections having their own news areas so the latest information is not collected in one place.

The design is clean, but the navigation is run horizontally across large parts of the top of the screen, restricting page content to the bottom half. With no sidebar, text streches the full width of the page, so can contain lines of twenty words or more, making them difficult to read.

The Revenue Commissioners' site has attracted much attention, primarily due to the impressive functionality that allows you to file taxes online. This is undoubtedly A Good Thing, but the audit suggests important informational functions have been neglected.

The basic site [www.revenue.ie] has confusing navigation, and information is presented in long pages with no attempt to improve the material's readibility online (for example, see the Artists' Exemptions page: [http://www.revenue.ie/services/tax_info/artinfo.htm]).

On the Revenue Online Service (ROS) site [www.ros.ie], the great functionality is let down by the quality of the supporting content around it. There's no search, and the text is unclear. The FAQs begin: 'ROS is the method by which Revenue is delivering its interactive customers services electronically to the customer', which sounds like it's been poorly translated from a foreign language.

The site of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform shows these customer service problems most clearly [http://www.justice.ie]. The first two links on the homepage are to information about the Minister and the Minister of State, rather than to services or news, suggesting that internally it's more important to keep the senior figures happy than help visitors find what they're looking for.

Inconsistent formatting compounds problems of a lack of signposting and support - access to press releases is from a bare list of titles without any summaries, and there's no metadata to help you sort through the publications or lists of associated agencies.

There is a large amount of information available, but it seems to have been added in the way most convenient to the Department, rather than to the visitor.

When it comes to consistency in quality of eGovernment provision, it's clear that there's lots done, more to do.

The Scores

Criteria	(Full marks)	Taoiseach	Revenue	Justice
Visitor Value	(150)	85	95	68
Functionality	(40)	20	22	19
Site Design	(60)	39	34	20
Total	(250)	144	151	107

Related Links:

• The Department of the Taoiseach - [http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie]
• Revenue Online Service - [www.ros.ie]
• The Revenue Commissioners - [http://www.revenue.ie]