Categories: Business

Will FixMyStreet.ie be the government’s first cloud computing initiative?

Credit: @RTE_Elections from Yfrog

We wrote yesterday about Fine Gael and Labour’s Programme for Government which plans to turn Ireland into a “leader in the emerging I.T. market of cloud computing”, so could FixMyStreet.ie be the government’s first foray into the cloud? (oh, and will the government base their site on the UK’s Fixmystreet.com?)

[Update August 2 2011 – The government has launched fixmystreet.ie in beta and testing it in South Dublin County at the moment]

FixMyStreet.ie was a Fine Gael election promise that survived unchanged from the week-long post-election negotiations with the Labour Party. The proposed site will allow residence to report “problems with street lighting, drainage, graffiti, waste collection and road and path maintenance in their neighbourhoods, with a guarantee that local officials will respond within two working days.”

This would appear to mirror the activities of the UK website of the same name, Fixmystreet.com/, which allows citizens to report “graffiti, fly tipping, broken paving slabs, or street lighting”. The UK site is managed by MySociety.org, a charity that builds civic websites to place citizens in contact with local and national authorities.

The FixMyStreet.com website has been released under a GNU Affero General Public License, allowing anyone to copy the site’s code for their own use. And according to the MySociety.org site the organisation “will consider developing projects based in other countries, if appropriate funding can be found”, with the possibility of hosting such sites on Amazon’s cloud servers.

No time-scale was given for the establishment of the site but Fine Gael appear to be moving quickly with the project. The domain name was registered by a Peter Cleary with Register365 on November 26 2010 and is currently listed as an active site.

Ajit Jain

Ajit Jain is marketing and sales head at Octal Info Solution, a leading iPhone app development company and offering platform to hire Android app developers for your own app development project. He is available to connect on Google Plus, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

View Comments

  • http://www.SeeClickFix is already up and running and working in Ireland. It is more versatile and transparent than FixMyStreet and could be used without a cent of taxpayers money being spent. All it needs is local authority buy-in,

  • http://www.SeeClickFix is already up and running and working in Ireland. It is more versatile and transparent than FixMyStreet and could be used without a cent of taxpayers money being spent. All it needs is local authority buy-in,

    • @OISINOHALMHAIN There was some discussion about a year ago by Dublin City Council of creating one of these sites for the City. How do you find using SeeClickFix?

  • Cloud computing initiative? It's a web site. Are we calling all web sites "cloud computing initiatives" now?

  • Cloud computing initiative? It's a web site. Are we calling all web sites "cloud computing initiatives" now?

    • @ryano Hi Ryano, we use the term cloud computing initiative as the government's new programme discusses fixmystreet.ie in the context of developing an exemplar cloud computing programme for Ireland, we have more in an earlier report here http://bit.ly/hNSLWb

      • @pdscott Sorry but that's just not the case. Fixmystreet.ie is mentioned in the PFG in the context of local government reform and public sector reform. The paragraph on cloud computing is in a completely different section.

        • Hi @ryano True and that is why we ask the question (could FixMyStreet.ie be the government’s first foray into the cloud?). It is interesting to note that the site has remained dormant since this was posted in 6 weeks ago and 6 months after the domain was registered http://bit.ly/hMEl8u

  • @ryano Hi Ryano, we use the term cloud computing initiative as the government's new programme discusses fixmystreet.ie in the context of developing an exemplar cloud computing programme for Ireland, we have more in an earlier report here http://bit.ly/hNSLWb

  • @OISINOHALMHAIN There was some discussion about a year ago by Dublin City Council of creating one of these sites for the City. How do you find using SeeClickFix?

  • @pdscott Sorry but that's just not the case. Fixmystreet.ie is mentioned in the PFG in the context of local government reform and public sector reform. The paragraph on cloud computing is in a completely different section.

  • Hi @ryano True and that is why we ask the question (could FixMyStreet.ie be the government’s first foray into the cloud?). It is interesting to note that the site has remained dormant since this was posted in 6 weeks ago and 6 months after the domain was registered http://bit.ly/hMEl8u

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