Dublin City Council will introduce a powerful new computer system capable of monitoring all employee e-mails, Internet use and phone conversations shortly.
Within the past week the council has awarded a contract for the new monitoring system to a supplier, despite serious reservations expressed by a trade union representing some employees.
The system is capable of analysing up to 30,000 calls a day and will be able to provide council managers with daily reports on web and phone usage.
The computer system will incorporate an alarm mechanism if a staff member dials a banned telephone number or visits a non-work related website.
It will also enable managers to view web content that is downloaded or uploaded by council employees.
Staff members' fixed line and mobile phone calls will all be monitored in terms of cost effectiveness to ensure that people are not wasting the council's money on personal calls, according to tender documents for the system.
The scope of the new centralised monitoring system has alarmed some union officials. Mr Brian Gorman, assistant general secretary of IMPACT, said the union was talking to the council about the monitoring system.
"We will have a problem with the system unless we are satisfied that it is not a radically different departure from the current one. We need to ensure it is not a type of Big Brother system."
Up until now the council has had four separate computer systems monitoring its employees use of phone and Internet facilities. This made it extremely difficult to provide useful information on usage to line managers.
A Dublin City Council spokeswoman confirmed yesterday that a contract for the new computer system had been awarded but would give no details on the identity of the successful bidder.
She said there had been no changes to the original tender published by the council.
Many businesses and public sector bodies are introducing more stringent monitoring systems to ensure staff are not misusing phone and Internet access.
A survey conducted by the technology firm PixAlert last week found that 40 per cent of Irish companies have had to deal with the issue of employees downloading or viewing pornography on computers at work.