Mayo council’s €4.2 million IT and email service is ‘beyond a joke’

The email service provided to Mayo councillors has been described as 'frustrating' and 'beyond a joke' due to the number of emails going into the spam folder.

The monthly meeting of Mayo County Council heard calls for a report into the council’s internal IT service to explain why a number of emails to councillors were being classified as spam including those from Oireachtas members.

The matter was raised by Fine Gael councillor Donna Sheridan who suggested that the €4.2 million spent annually on IT services should be cut and allocated to other services if it does not improve.

“We are trying to get emails from Oireachtas members but they are taken off and put into quarantine every day. In our budget we are spending €4.2 million on our IT services and we cannot get our emails.

“It has gone beyond frustrating....I have lost confidence. It is beyond a joke and I will be looking for a big budget cut and more money put into the services,” she said.

She was supported by Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne who added that emails from some council departments also go into quarantine.

“There are sections within Mayo county council which send us emails that go into quarantine. I don't know what money you are paying whoever is advising you on this system but I am sure there is better use for it,” he said.

Cllr Kilcoyne also criticised the council for not allowing councillors to advertise their personal email on their council letterhead.

“You don't allow us to use our own personal emails on our letterheads. We have to use the one that emails might come to and mightn't come or are spammed. What kind of service is that? We need a report for the next meeting,” he said.

In response, Peter Duggan, Director of Finances with responsibility for Information Systems defended the council's IT system saying that they had to protect against cyber attacks.

“All councillors are issued with [an email] addresses and all firewall and security is attached to that address. I make no excuses in asking that we do business in that way because it minimises the risk of a proper cyber attack. You all know the amount of spam we are getting is increasing and the majority of those can have a cyberattack attached to it,” he said.

Mr Duggan added that there is a process where councillors can request an email which has been quarantined to be released and once released it will not be added to spam again.

The reply from Mr Duggan was challenged by both Cllrs Sheridan and Kilcoyne who pointed out that councillors in other local authorities did not face similar problems with their email system. Cllr Sheridan added that there was no balance between the threat of a cyber attack and emails not being received and this should not be the case given how much money was being spent.

Fianna Fáil councillor Damien Ryan said €4.2 million was a significant amount of money and it needed to be explained to councillors why the problem was occurring.