Barry Lowry has been the CIO for the Irish Government since April 2016 with the primary task of taking forward the government's digital agenda. He is also the chief advisor to the government on all digital matters affecting the state and its citizens.

Barry was previously the Director for IT Shared Services and Strategy and head of the IT Profession within the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

Barry is a Fellow of the Irish and British Computer Societies and is a former winner of the BCS Northern Ireland IT Professional of the Year. He was awarded an OBE. for services to the Northern Ireland government and the Northern Ireland computer industry in 2017.

Barry is a public servant at heart, the best of the breed. Deeply driven to the mission of serving, he blends this calling nicely together with social intelligence and with the technologist's training and a manager's thinking.

It must be this blend that has seen him take the digital work of government to a whole new level on several occasions, first in Northern Ireland and now in the Republic of Ireland. The challenge in the latter was to put the house in order, basically, and Barry surely has managed that. Through careful planning and relentless work on delivering the strategy, the Office of GCIO has also lifted Ireland to the ranks of digital government role models—including with their COVID-19 pandemic response.

Barry is very structured and methodical in his thinking and in the way he approaches his work. That does not imply he is theoretical—oh, he is as practical as can be. But the next pages will reveal how much systematic thought he gives to how to be effective in whatever he does, and then puts these thoughts to practice in building up his team and his work every day.

Barry has built himself to be a true people's person. If you are to meet him, opt for a meeting with a pint in the pub (he will not decline!). You will then have a grand craic, I promise.

—SIIM

How Did You Become Involved in the Digital Government Work?

I have been working in the area for over thirty years. I started at the very bottom. At the time when I had left school and had been accepted by university, I found teaching interesting. But in Ireland, there were just no jobs for teachers at that time. I had successfully applied for a temporary position in the civil service over the summer and it was full of unemployed teachers!

Then civil service offered me a permanent job. I planned to take a year for this job and then go back to the university track. They put me in a clerical role in the pensions branch. There I learned that I really liked the idea of public service and the difference you can make to people's lives.

One day my mentor came to me with this form and said I should complete it. I read it and it was to do an exam to go train in IT. I said I did not even like computers! He encouraged me, I applied, and was one of eight people selected. After six months of training, I was a programmer and suddenly realized this is what I was born to do.

After a couple of years, I was promoted into the analyst stream and worked on several major projects. As I was starting to get offers for jobs in the private sector, every time I thought of taking one, an opportunity came up with the civil service. So, I sort of felt I was meant to stay there. I ended up becoming a team lead, then I became a manager in my late twenties. I was the senior technical lead on the (very successful) Animal and Public Health Information System project in Northern Ireland and got a real taste for what being a program director was like, with all the aspects of change and transformation.

What Was Your Road Then to the GCIO Role in Ireland?

I first became the head of technology at the Department of Health in Northern Ireland, then moved to become head of technology for the whole Northern Ireland government. I was then asked to deliver IT shared services, ended up being the head there. I did all of that for four years and then started to think, what will be the next big challenge?

I was invited to have a conversation about possibly going over to London to take a role at the Cabinet Office, and was also offered the role of head of IT at a major London Borough Council, because Northern Ireland is a region in the UK. At the same time, I was not sure if I actually wanted to uproot the family for London. I had joked that I was going to wait until they approached me from Dublin. Out of the blue one day, I got a phone call that the GCIO job had come available and had I thought of it?

The Office of the Government CIO (OGCIO) was created in 2013 and the first GCIO was Bill McCluggage. Unfortunately, Bill had to leave the role after several months for personal matters, and Michael McGrath temporarily came in to deliver the public service ICT strategy. Apparently, both Bill and Michael had suggested that the next government CIO should have a strong focus for program delivery and mentioned my name as a good possible fit.

When I got the call from Bill, the applications closed that night. I literally had a few hours to decide, to talk to my wife and apply. The candidacy was a two-interview process with aptitude tests and such thrown in. Once I was offered the job, the Northern Irish civil service agreed to put me on a career break for up to three years. If I decided I wanted to stay, I could make it permanent with the Irish civil service. This was generous on both sides.

So, in some respects, I never had a grand plan. I just saw opportunities for growth and for increased challenge. The universe lined up in a way.

Do You Still Miss a Chance to Get Your Hands into Code?

What I actually loved the most was dealing with the people around my job. I really enjoyed that I could take a conversation with customers and turn that into an output. The purity of the code was not what interested me; it was what you could do with it, what you could do with technology.

Jenny Johnston, my first boss and a terrific mentor, saw in me someone who was really comfortable talking to the users. What started to emerge was that my real skill set was to translate the customer vision into technical conversations that technical people could use. I could talk to customers; I could work out ways of doing things.

I did love to code, because I like the idea of sitting in a room and writing stuff, seeing its output was quite thrilling. But when I got to see the first electronic driver's licenses being produced in Northern Ireland, and to be able to say that night to my mom and dad that it was my system—that bit really started to rock my boat. So, the design and leading the delivery of the project became the bits that excited me the most.

A large part of my current job still is dealing with the more senior people to work out how to deliver things. Having conversations with politicians and bouncing ideas off them, taking their ideas and translating them into possible ways in which we can resolve the issue. You start to ask the right questions and start to almost crystallize their thinking into something that would be achievable, that could be a project.

How Is the Digital Government Work Led in Ireland and What Was Your Motivation to Join That Effort?

OGCIO is under the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The department itself was formed in response to the national financial crash of the late 2000s. It was created in 2011 from splitting the Department of Finance in two to keep things that were missed precrash more in focus and steer the recovery in public administration. It is focused on making sure that taxpayers' money was spent as well as possible and to evolve the civil service through reform.

The creation of OGCIO was very much in line with the UK's Cabinet Office's Government Digital Service model, a unit responsible for strategic direction but also the sanction of major spend: stopping things from happening if they were not aligned with the strategy or enabling them if they were.

This really appealed to me. In Northern Ireland, there I was in the chief advisory role. But the idea of being responsible in a national role, including for health service, welfare, policing, so on—that really appealed to me. I had seen what Mike Bracken and Liam Maxwell had done (in the UK) and when you watch other people doing their jobs, you do think what would you do in their position. When you are then offered the same chance or a chance to compete for that, it becomes very appealing.

I currently report to two ministers. One is Michael McGrath, the minister for the whole department. The other is minister of State for eGovernment—we really do need to change that awful old title! Ossian Smyth is the current minister there and he has background in technology himself, and is very passionate and keen for change.

What Did the Bosses Expect You to Deliver; What Was the Goal They Gave You?

I think there was a sense that they wanted an acceleration of e-government but very much with a reform focus. They also wanted this to be done in a “safe” way. Ireland really has had only two bad experiences with IT at the national level. One of them was called Reach. A brilliant idea but not that well executed. It was the idea of a single relationship with the customer, way ahead of its time. The other was PPARS. Again, a good initiative but one that failed as a transformation program. No one wanted another major IT disaster in government, and plenty were being reported from other parts of Europe.

I am not sure many politicians fully understood the new public sector ICT strategy, but it just felt to them like it was the right thing to do. So, the expectations for me were very much to bring stability and to start to show a forward momentum.

What Was the State of Digital Government When You Came into the Job?

Ireland was seen, also in international studies, to be a country that had progressed well in the past but was in stagnation in public sector ICT. It was probably a fair assessment. In the early days of e-government we had done extremely well, but then there was the financial crash and Irish government had to get financial rescue packages in place. Similar to all other infrastructure development, technology spend had been more or less curtailed because there were other priorities.

I joined at a brilliant time really because the country was coming out of the worst of the recession. There was an appetite to reinvest again. My predecessor had done the public service ICT strategy and I thought it was an extremely good document. In fact, in my second interview one of the questions was that if I accepted the job, would I want to rewrite the strategy? I thought it was a perfect strategy, exactly what was needed. My ambition would be to implement it as much as possible, as quickly as possible.

Where Did You Start with It? What Was Your Focus in the First Hundred Days?

There had been previously a very bad relationship between the center and the departments. That needed to be repaired because we had to get national solutions in place. I had to bring in the departments and try to get them to feel part of an overall solution and a plan to go forward.

The first thing I did when I came into the post in April 2016 was to meet all the secretary generals. I got a real sense that some of them felt very “unloved” by the center; there had not been a lot of attention given to them by our department. My priority was to rebuild those relations and get together a really strong cross-departmental team, all committed to change.

I used for this a tool set I had used before, called reference design and governance. This tool gets a really good conversation going and can help facilitate an action plan for the achievement of a shared vision. One of my traits is that I always manage to absorb information from really, really clever people. One of my best friends is Dr. Joe McDonagh; he is an expert in change and transformation in Trinity College, Dublin. He taught me two critical components of successful change: always honor the past and invite people to cocreate the future. That is what I used.

I never criticized where the departments were at the time—I said they were doing the best they could in a difficult context. But here was an opportunity for us to accelerate if we all worked together. I made it very clear to them that I wanted us all to work together and be part of the leadership of ICT-enabled change and development. I think the way these relationships started and have strengthened over the last five years has really paid dividends to government.

The other thing was to create a concrete plan for going forward. We took the five pillars of the strategy, which were a better digital experience, more joined-up data, and the three enablers of more talented staff across government, shared infrastructure, and better governance. We took a look at these five pillars using this reference design and governance method, and we created what was called the “18-step plan.” I presented the plan as my priorities for my first three years.

Once accepted, we broke those eighteen major deliverables to projects and also grouped some of them. We then got CIOs from the departments to cochair their delivery boards with someone from my department. It created a real sense that we were all in this together and we were going to build something better together.

What Was Your Time Horizon with the Plan?

I had set out for three years on the job initially because your planning has to be very much linked to the longevity of the government in place. They need to achieve things; they need to show the public that they—and you—are achieving things. In 2016, we had a strong government in place; it was going to be in place for three or more years and so my three-year view felt like aligning to that window. In this period, you can also make sure that you already have some wins as well. So, we articulated where we needed to be in three years.

What Were Your Levers to Make It All Happen?

The least sexy part of technology and transformation is the most important—good governance, good project, and program management. That was one of the things that we did rigidly introduce, and it made a huge difference. I think it really increased the government's confidence that we knew what we were doing, and that we were going to deliver.

As I said, we started to bring the departments into governance and gave them more influence in and understanding of what was happening. That worked. Also, it is important to have a program support office driving the change, demonstrating the progress, putting out good communication about what you are achieving and saying.

One key lever has been that I can stop a project in the government. I used to say to people that it was a perfect tool to have; it was a bit like having a powerful missile. You want everybody to know you have one, but you never want to fire it. There was only one occasion with one department where they were really being difficult about something that we wanted to do, and I threatened to sanction the project. The department followed in the end, and it actually went well for them.

It was a powerful demonstration that you need two things. You need to work with the other parts of the public service so that you get a common vision. But they also need to understand that in the end it is you as GCIO responsible for all the bits working, and they have to play their part. That is why sanction is a really important tool. It has really increased cooperation.

In OGCIO, we have worked really hard to be helpful, too. We have been suggesting solutions, helping departments develop things, and so on. If you approach it the right way, with the right governance, are open to reuse, and are open to principles such as the “once only,”¹ and so on, then we will support what you do. We will help you in every way. But if you are not going to follow and you are not delivering what the public needs, we will not let you do that. These are the rules of engagement. It is a bit like with your parents. Once you know the boundaries and do not cross them, you have a pretty good relationship with your parents when you are growing up.

Besides Setting up the New Governance Model, What Were Your Major Priorities in the 18-Step Plan?

On digital experience, there were two big plays: to grow MyGovID and to build a government portal (gov.ie). These gave us the platform to do amazing things next.

One of the things that I really wanted to do was build out a national electronic identity system. There already was one called MyGovID. It had only 8,675 verified accounts. I saw an opportunity to give a priority to growing the use of this system. We introduced it as a log-in capacity next to the proprietary log-in capability with the Department of Revenue, our most influential department, and then onwards in others. Today MyGovID is one of the fastest growing digital identities in the world at the moment in terms of actual use, according to Gartner consultancy.

In addition to the discussions on MyGovID was the idea of a single portal to access all government services because it was not easy to find the right government service in the first place. We had done one in Northern Ireland, but trying to sell that idea was hard initially. The Taoiseach's, meaning prime minister's department, liked the idea, though. This gave us the political mandate and interest to push it ahead. The portal proved invaluable during the management of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On the data side, the work was very much about building the foundations: legislation, the data sharing and governance act, and a data strategy itself. By the way, the data strategy was largely developed by departments with our facilitation, which was really powerful. We have a new Data Governance Board model, data catalog, and so on.

On the infrastructure, we wanted to move to a single data center for the government and the hybrid cloud computing model. We now have most departments using the exact same service and the same network.

On people, we developed an ICT professionalization strategy. We got an ICT apprenticeship scheme up and running with graduates, and we have a government-wide shared approach to recruitment.

Once the three years were done and I decided to stay onboard for longer, we have been growing from there in all these directions.

How Has COVID-19 Changed the Way You Operate and What You Are Working On?

I have had to effectively lead some of the national response to COVID-19. Remember that it was one of my attractions to the role at start—to be able to take such a lead.

When COVID-19 broke and started to get really serious in 2020, I was involved in a governance group that included the Department of Health, Health Service Executive, and An Garda, meaning the national police service. We started to plot out how could we use technology to help in the battle against COVID.

One of those tools we identified was the contact tracking app. That appealed to the politicians, so we designed it out and implemented. It actually was a huge success. It was not just optics, because the bigger it began to be, the more we were approached by other governments to use it. The most recent one was New Zealand, and this was a huge motivator to the staff, because we admire New Zealand so much in terms of what they are doing in the tech space.

The other big area of COVID-19 response was people flipping to work from home. Several departments would have struggled to do this had they not signed up for our “Build to Share” desktop solution. We have a very good team on shared services who were able to very quickly enable thousands of civil servants to work from home. This really helped the senior people and the civil servants to understand what the shared services model is about—the value of being on the same network, easier to protect, and so on.

I was then approached to take the lead developing the digital COVID-19 certificate, and that has been a huge success.

OGCIO has always had two arms to it: a policy arm and a delivery arm. We learned from the UK that sustained delivery is very hard when you have people coming and going through a revolving door. The one strength we have in Ireland is that a lot of really good people have wanted to stay. The contractors have been loyal to us as well because they love the work. So, when it came to COVID-19 response, this all gave us an element of confidence that we could deliver things and quick.

COVID-19 also demonstrated the strength of the relationships built way back. We realized that a big number of people were vaccinated by general practitioners, and we did not have email addresses for these people, because GPs tend to record only physical addresses. As we were going to push out the vaccination certificates, we were going to have to use post and OGCIO had no way to do it. Then it occurred to me that revenue service has a world-class postal capability. I phoned the CIO and he said, “We will not let you down.” They printed and posted about 1.2 million certificates that could not be emailed and they did it all for us, for government.

How Have You Managed to Keep the Political Backing Necessary for Delivery and for Keeping a Focus?

You have your long-term objectives of what you believe you need to do, and sometimes that may not be particularly exciting for a politician or a minister. A classic case was our data center. I wanted to build a hybrid cloud model, wanted to use more of a public cloud. There were many barriers to it, all the way from people who had their databases on their work computers and their own computer rooms. It meant physical barriers, cultural barriers, and so on. Breaking that was harder because government ministers are not particularly interested in back office stuff. At the start of 2021, we finally convinced the new minister that it was the right thing to do—also for green agenda reasons, because we will be shutting down inefficient computer rooms—and procurement is starting now. So, sometimes you have to just keep trying.

You also have to give politicians opportunities to show that they are having an impact as well. You have to always be alive during the conversations with them, to try and pick things that might interest them. Then you try and deliver those, especially if you have the tools ready for it. A good example was with a previous minister of state who had the idea to take the budget and present it graphically to enable the public to see how their taxes were spent. So, we built the website to show where people's money goes. We knew we could make it work, because we actually hosted all the budget data and had lot of analytics capabilities. A year later we even got awarded a prize for the contribution to fiscal studies! The teachers were using it in schools.

The learning for me is that you have got to be alert to what politicians pick up from talking to their constituents, to other ministers, and so on. You then have to be flexible enough to take this sort of political work in, and it might be actually a good idea they bring.

What Was the Team Like When You Joined and How Did You Build It Further?

I started with fifty-two staff members, four direct reports. This year, I have six direct reports and sixty-six staff members, plus a lot of contractors.

When I joined in 2016, I came down to Dublin for two induction days and met the team. I was incredibly impressed at the talent that was within the OGCIO. They just needed the opportunity to use that talent. They needed top-level support to get the political support to get money and set the direction, the narrative, all that stuff a CIO does.

In terms of setting up a program and then the support office for its delivery, it needed someone with a natural skill set for that. But that was always my strength, my bread and butter: to develop programs, allocate resource, balance the team, move a project forward. We were also able to recruit someone for it and we built up momentum quickly.

Even though people have left, I have been lucky to replace them with people of equivalent talent.

What Has Been Your Trick to Attracting Them to Come and Work for You?

I think you get a reputation.

The best thing that ever happened to me was that I decided to get an additional degree in my mid-twenties once I was in the IT stream in government. I ended up doing a modular degree, including subjects on occupational psychology, industrial relations, advertising, marketing, public relations, finance, and so on. In other words, all the components of a CIO role, and that was invaluable.

I started managing staff using the principles I studied: empowerment, trust, continuous learning. I always loved the McGregor Theory X and Theory Y approach. It suggests that if you trust your staff members and they are able to give their best, they will. If you are watching like a hawk thinking they are not working enough otherwise, this will happen, too. It is all about trust. I was doing it in some very conservative departments and all of a sudden people could see that my area was performing way above expectations.

These tools have never let me down in my entire career. People have wanted to come and work with me, because they know that is how I manage. They know that they will be given the space to make their own decisions and do their thing. I have managed to develop every team of mine to where we use the strengths of the individuals to make them the strengths of the team. We do deliver things in unison, and that works.

What Have Been Your Values or Mottos to Steer the Team With? What Culture Did You Want in the Team?

One of my mottos to the team has been that you have to earn the right to ask for more. In other words, let us deliver with what we have got, then we will go and have the conversation about what we could deliver, if we had an increase in resources.

Also, because we are the strategy unit, we have got to invite people to cocreate the future. It takes respect; it takes empowerment.

I have wanted us to be an organization that is good to work with. I constantly have said to the team that we do not turn people away with any requests for help; we take the time, and we answer them. I have always done it myself, too. Just as an example—got an email from a guy who was doing a team project for his master's degree. He needed to interview a CIO and was there any chance he could interview me? I said, sure, come and have a cup of coffee. And then I got him another interview with a private sector CIO who was a friend of mine.

I am a great believer that you always get more back. Help is the best investment you can make. If your organization reflects that culture, then people trust it and want to work it. The reputation of OGCIO in this respect is beyond our wildest dreams from when we started in 2016.

What Have You Used to Sustain the Relationships with Other Departments and Stakeholders?

We started and have kept going a forum of heads of technology from all the departments. What we often do is bring in somebody to do a presentation, and we will have a chat about it afterwards. People networking and thinking together can be really productive because it sustains relationships, or you pick up information. We do not always have a clear agenda, where we tick the boxes in the style of a commission. At the same time, our relationship becomes stronger.

We only sometimes talk about the strategy program because delivery is mainly going forward through one-on-one relationships. So, I also meet the CIOs directly on a regular basis. As a national CIO, you want to make sure that you are seen by the department CIOs as someone of their own, that you are representing their views, and sharing the same opinions when possible.

I also sit in a number of governance boards, which are all important for different reasons. For example, one of them looks at offline services, which is a big part of inclusivity. I have always said that the success of government is in how it looks after the needs of all its people. So if there is 10 percent that will never go online, we need to give that 10 percent the best experience possible as well.

Besides the Routines with External Stakeholders, What Routines or Style Have Been Effective with Your Own Team?

I have six deputies or direct reports, responsible for different areas.

We do have a formal process of meeting twice a year, but we speak at least once a week to catch up. They look at my diary and put something in, although I am available to them also on need in the meantime. Some of them want a regular slot, some of them take ten minutes, some want an hour—that is all fine. I want to be moving at their pace. At the end of the day, my success will be gauged through what they achieve more than what I achieve.

I always have a great sense of the rhythm of the organization because I am getting the weekly updates. I do not need to be in the minutiae of every project, though occasionally, things will come up that the team will want to discuss with me. When somebody comes to you with a problem, just by letting them speak, they can often resolve it themselves. They are almost performing an extra layer of analysis as they speak. When you ask them questions, you are driving them to tell you what the answer to the problem is and you are not telling them. That is how it works out nine times out of ten. Only occasionally, I will have an idea and want them to think about or work on it.

Given All You Have Achieved, What Has Been the Hardest Part in Your Job and What Have You Also Perhaps Failed With?

The hardest part has been getting the whole of government to an understanding of the importance of technology. I think that has changed. Whether because of COVID-19 or it would have happened anyway, is another question.

There is a different attitude toward technology in the Irish government; it is not seen as a peripheral topic anymore. They have seen that the whole government policy of reopening the economy, the travel, enabling dining in, and the reopening of hospitality would not have been possible in COVID times without the technology. But there were times over the last few years where I was a bit disappointed that there was not one minister responsible for all things digital, that I had to work with different ones. Yet, I tend to be a person that sees a positive in everything. Having five ministers with some responsibility for wider digital policy has helped me build relationships with five ministers rather than just one. This strengthens our work in another ways.

One of the things I would change, if had to start again, would maybe be to push for a specific piece of digital legislation to enable MyGovID. The value and safety of MyGovID is only now being understood—previously there was misunderstanding about the process. Recently, a report recognized that it was a huge success both financially and in terms of delivering digital government. So, it is clear we are getting there—and the public uptake has continued to grow.

Although there is only a small group of people against data sharing, they are very vociferous and will not acknowledge the other side of the argument. Most people think that the “once-only” principle is the most obvious thing. Yet, there are people who say that they want to choose that one government department would not have their real home address while another one does. I am not certain how can you address these people. Do you stop investing your energies to persuade them and just move around them? I was shocked by the first newspaper vitriolic narrative about the Public Services Card and the MyGovID back in 2016. I could not understand the logic behind the fears of reusing identity data to serve people better when many actually wanted to be served better. I guess you have to accept that you cannot be loved by everybody, or you are going to be very disappointed. And I know now of course there are pockets of opposition in most countries.

What pleases me, though, is that MyGovID has seen such a growth in use. People see it is a good thing! For example, MyGovID made it easy for people to apply to the new national childcare scheme recently. It really helped the people understand the benefit of data sharing and a single ID. You get the public support if they clearly see the benefits.

What Do You Consider Your Biggest Achievement in the Office?

All the eighteen steps in the plan have been achieved, even if some took longer. However, I am most proud of what OGCIO has achieved as an organization.

Around the time of COVID-19 certificate delivery, I was doing twice-daily standups with our tech team. I saw how many hours the team was working and how proud they were of the changes they were making. They are so motivated and driven if they see what their work is going to achieve. I have seen it a few times over the last few years. That fantastic experience of seeing what we can put out as a team, the potential we have, is better than any single one achievement.

How Long Do You Think You Will Still Be in Office and What Might Be Next for You?

What the Irish government needed was sustainability and longevity. I have wanted to give the organization real confidence that I would not ask them to do stuff that is risky and then next minute I would be joining an IT company or something. I promised my team already the first time I met them that I would be there until the job was finished. And I am still there! As a government CIO, you have got to play a short and a long game. It is very, very hard on a national level to make a sustained impact in two years. We need to commit and that was the contribution I made.

I personally wanted from Ireland the experience of running national programs, as I said. I have learned so much about it: about developing laws, the parliamentary process, working with the most senior ministers to understand their agenda. All that has been challenging but really enjoyable as well.

I was approached last Christmas to sign a new contract for the GCIO role. I did sign it, so I will be here until 2026—I feel there is a lot more to do. I will not sign another contract after that; it will be time for somebody else to take over and I think the next GCIO will be an internal candidate reflecting the growing talent that we have.

What Will Irish Digital Government Look Like in Five Years Once You Hand Over? What Are the Next Things or Even the Next Strategy in the Works?

We have got a draft of a new public service ICT strategy coming together now; I am hoping to get it out in the next couple of months. The theme of that is very much to build on the strong foundations we have laid.

The next big thing we want to do is around life events and have all the related things in gov.ie. Once you will register the birth, we will do everything for you, the whole package of services, because we know who you are. Or same thing with bereavement, when you are setting up a company or when you are returning to Ireland. This one is a big thing for us with diaspora coming back. We are going to make all these services more proactive.

On the identity front, the big development would be to have it on the phone like all of Europe is going to. We are already putting out some of the next generation technology for it. Also, we want to extend MyGovID into personal private sector use. Government owns the process but allows others to use it. We are in discussions with the central bank, for example, about how your government credential can be used to open up a bank account.

There will be single infrastructure, also for home and blended working within public sector. With that, the government will be an even more attractive place to work.

Getting cohesive and joined-up European systems would be something I would like to see us achieve in the next five years. We have had an awful lot of good ideas about how we could use ID across Europe but have not delivered too much. We did not manage to deliver a single COVID-19 certificate or tracing system for Europe.

The area I really want to see improved nationally is health care. I think there is so much potential that we really need to give this a push. What I want to do is set up an ecosystem, where any Irish company that has a big idea has to be given a chance of an approach by the public service. In other words, we have got to tell them why we will not use it, rather than ignore their calls. I want to make it a rigid process where the government is obliged to do something.

At the end of the day, if we are going to keep talent in this country, we have got to give them an opportunity to test the ideas and refine them, and then show other countries that it will work. By accident, what we did with contact tracing in Ireland was a perfect example of how our govtech industry can grow. Under emergency provisions, we were able to do a very quick procurement, engage an Irish company who were experts in a particular area, and give them the testing bed to show what they were able to achieve. Their solution ended up being used in other countries around the world and creating employment in Ireland out of that.

In Northern Ireland, too, we completely changed the procurement framework, and suddenly all these start-ups and SMEs started to grow. That is what I want to achieve in Ireland. Our relationship with multinationals is terrific, but I want our indigenous sector to be as good as anywhere in the world.

Overall, I believe we are at the cusp of technology pervading everything and I want Ireland to be the best in it.

How Are You Building Things to Last so That the Journey You Started Will Continue?

Well, the big things from our strategy are here to stay now. Gov.ie, MyGovID, infrastructure, data work. They will evolve and might be replaced with newer versions, but their value has been demonstrated and their vision will remain. It is them changing that gives the initiatives sustainability, also—like we are now changing what MyGovID is or how it works with mobile phones.

It pays to be open to new technology developments. There are loads of people in Ireland that are constantly trying to push the boundaries with research. What I need to do is have the conversations with them and give them the opening to test out ideas. Then they might change how we do things in government.

The biggest thing for sustainability is the culture and practice of people development in your organization. I have never been afraid to recruit people and develop those people to take my job. I have never been interested in this cult of the supreme being that some CIOs fall into. I have been more interested in building an organization that is really strong, really respected, and has several people that can do my job extremely well. It worked well in Northern Ireland just the same. So, do not be afraid of developing people.

What Are Your Nuggets of Advice for Any Peer about How to Do the National CIO or Similar Role Most Effectively?

It is all about the people. That is the first thing. If you do not build relationships and foster relationships, you will not succeed. It is as simple as that.

As I said, one of my great heroes is Douglas McGregor for his Theory X and Theory Y concept. It is the idea that if you trust people to give of their best, they will not let you down. If you do not trust them, then they will let not you down on that front either. Understanding of how you trust your staff members and empower them is really important.

The second thing is that you have to invite people to cocreate the future in the transformation projects. That means everybody, from lowest level onwards. When I started the shared service center in Northern Ireland, I sat with the first-level staff members and listened to their ideas because I wanted their support to the change.

Third, do not be afraid of your limitations. Joe McDonagh has this four-quadrant model. In order for transformation to happen, you need four skill sets. First one is architecture—the big picture thinking. Second one is engineering, turning that big picture into projects and deliverables. Third one is humanist dimension, bringing the staff along. Fourth one is broker skills, which is about building the support you need.

In any transformation project, the first thing is that you have to assess your skill set against those four quadrants and then bring in the people with skill sets you do not have. I was good at architecture; I was good at the humanist and brokering part. I needed good engineers to work with me and so that became the focus of my enhancement of my team. If one of those four quadrants is missing, transformation is unlikely to succeed.

If you look at major project failures, the vast majority of them fail because they did not have a long-term champion who would support it through any tricky moments. That is the broker stuff. Next biggest reason for failure is because the staff at the front end did not get it. It is a humanist-quadrant failure.

CIOs tend to be focused on the two of architecture or engineering, but the reason that projects fail are the other two. Focus on people and brokering issues, getting the political mandate, the senior mandate—because you are the leader. The only way you are going to lead a change is to engage all the stakeholders and bring along the critical ones, especially.