Politicians did one of two unfortunate things when they ran out of time for debate during last week's Dail discussion on the Government's E-commerce Bill.
Either they demonstrated an incredibly short-sighted willingness to sacrifice this crucial piece of legislation on the altar of party politics or they displayed an extraordinary lack of understanding of the dynamic speed at which governments must move to be competitive in the e-business arena - and thus, seems not to understand fully the importance of e-commerce to the nation's future. Come to think of it, maybe they did both.
Whatever the case, the Bill's passage in this Dail term has been placed in serious doubt, given that little time remains for the Bill to go through its current reading, pass to committee stage and complete the rest of the ordained cycle before being passed into law.
The Government and many Dail members had already feared the Bill was on a dangerously tight schedule, because last week's reading had been put off once already.
Fine Gael would have been well aware of these concerns, given that one of the more informed and vigorous contributors to the debate has been the party's own Mr Ivan Yates. Despite this, the party seemed happy last week to place the Bill in limbo.
If the Bill does not go through in the next two weeks, we will have to wait until October for an opportunity to push it forward again. The delay would be a shocking development, placing the Republic months behind Britain (which passed its E-commerce Bill a few weeks ago) in bringing in this key legislation.
Not only does that in itself risk damaging the State's image, it also necessarily means that further needed legislation will be stalled.
For months, energies will still have to focus on the passage of this Bill rather than on other planks of e-commerce strategy.
Ironically, Fine Gael members argued strongly for the need for speed and further swift legislation themselves in last week's debate, most eloquently and incisively Mr Jimmy Deenihan. He noted, "The E-commerce Bill is just one step. If the Minister [for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke] fails to move quickly, Ireland will forever be stuck in the information boreen rather than the information superhighway. It is important we move rapidly at this stage."
Yet 30 minutes later, Fine Gael's Mr Denis Naughten proceeded to run out time on the Bill. The way in which this was done smacked of the deliberate stalling tactics of a filibuster ("the making of prolonged speeches or the introduction or irrelevant material, for the purpose of delaying legislative action").
Fine Gael has formally denied this and Mr Naughten only had less than 10 minutes to speak. But his subject matter was irrelevant to the actual Bill, which simply gives legal recognition to, and sets out a framework for, the use of electronic documents, electronic signatures and online identity verification.
What Mr Naughten delivered was an attack on Eircom's sluggishness in providing high-speed ISDN lines for Internet access, and in rolling out alternative access technologies.
He also explained some of the technicalities of ISDN, and even pointed out that Eircom sometimes continued to charge for the old phone line and handset when ISDN was installed.
These may all be interesting and important topics. But they are peripheral to the E-commerce Bill. ail gave three hours of debate time the previous week to the subject of Eircom, the deputy did not raise these issues at all. It did not seem to occur to anyone in Fine Gael that any serious concerns about e-commerce could be debated without actually putting the Bill's passage at risk.
Fine Gael members could have put forward a private member's motion to continue the discussion of the issues without affecting debate time. Or, they could have adjourned the debate proper and taken up the issues, letting the Bill continue its passage. But they chose to run out debate time for a Bill which up until now had had strong cross-party support.
But the Internet has radically altered the concept of time, and a delay of four months is the equivalent of putting off a Bill in other sectors for two to three years.
Still, Dail members in general may not be aware of this, given that most show little practical knowledge of the Net by, for example, making themselves available to their constituents via that most basic Internet communication format, an e-mail address.
For that matter, neither does almost any public representative, which makes all the talk about getting government online ring rather hollow.
In last week's debate, nearly every contributor raised in some way the issue of greater government and citizen interaction via the Net.
They spoke of Irish people accessing their health records online, filing taxes, paying fees, sending planning applications, registering vehicles, and so forth.
Yet this is never going to happen without the E-commerce Bill. The Bill provides such activities with a crucial, protective legal framework, giving formal recognition to electronic documents and setting out a system for using electronic signatures and for verifying identity.
Furthermore, if the Bill is delayed until October, it means the State will have none of these elements in place even though the Office of the Revenue Commissioners is supposed to start offering online tax filing in September.
As Mr Deenihan pointed out, time is of the essence with e-commerce strategy; it's a shame that this insight didn't inform the practical outcome of the debate last week.
Let's hope that the Bill does, somehow, make it through the Dail this month.
klillington@irish-times.ie
