§ Mr. ChopeTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what assessment she has made of the conclusions of Taskforce 2000 published on 11 November in respect of her Department's most recent quarterly return on plans and progress towards Year 2000 readiness. [60222]
§ Mr. Paul MurphyThe Taskforce 2000 report provided a comprehensive assessment of the state of preparedness of our Northern Ireland departments as it existed at the end of the summer period. We welcome any independent analysis of our published returns as a double check on analysis carried out in-house.
The conclusions of the Taskforce 2000 report match closely to our own in-house analysis. The Departments concerned are well aware of the problem areas identified and were already acting on these prior to the publication of the Taskforce 2000 report.
The results of the next quarterly review will be announced shortly to the House and copies of the NIO latest quarterly return will be placed in the Libraries of the House and on the Internet.