Case study:The Public Services Broker (the broker) was first mooted in 2000 and became the flagship project of the "Reach" unit within the Department of Social and Family Affairs.
It was to be a one-stop shop for citizens in their dealings with all government departments and agencies.
For example, a person changing their address would access the broker through the website www.reachservices.ie and it would automatically send a message to all relevant departments and agencies.
A cabinet committee on eGovernment approved the development of this service at an estimated cost of €14 million. But it ended up costing €37 million with ongoing costs of up to €15 million per annum.
In his report, Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell states that the concept envisaged a "radical re-engineering of government services to generate significant benefits for citizens and business". However, he goes on to explain why that did not happen. There was no proper examination of its feasibility; there was weak planning; and implementation was far slower and more costly than thought.
And while the broker has potential, the number of services it actually provides is very limited. It provides no self-service to the public and its main use nowadays is as an identity authentication for PAYE taxpayers, who want to access the Revenue's ROS website.
In fact, ROS itself could have provided that service. According to Mr Purcell, the broker may have been chosen to "build up its public credibility".
And until it began to process PAYE applications, the number of people accessing the site was dismal. In 2005, it had 18,000 visitors, a pittance compared to the Citizens Information website which had 2.5 million hits.
Unsurprisingly, a full-scale review of the broker and Reach services has been ongoing since March 2007.