Council to develop online portal for payments and applications

Westmeath County Council are working to develop online portal options for payments and applications, a meeting of Athlone Moate Municipal District heard.

It was revealed in response to a motion by Cllr Frankie Keena which asked that Athlone Moate Municipal District to “provide an online option for those people who wish to renew their parking permits, with the council through that medium”.

“Due to work commitments, people can’t get into the office between the hours of 9am and 4pm,” Cllr Keena said.

“The public are looking for this service, and it would also free up a lot of staff.”

In a written response, the council executive said they are “exploring the further expansion of online services/payment options for a variety of services including the provision of parking permits. This will be completed on a phased basis. For the moment, where an online application/payment is not available services will continue to be provided on an in-person basis.”Cllr Aengus O’Rourke and Cllr John Dolan supported for the motion. “There’s far too much paperwork, we need to go down the digital route,” said Cllr O’Rourke. “We can piggy back on the progress already being made in other areas.”

District manager Annie Blessington said the council are being careful not to tie themselves to a system that will “quickly become redundant”.”There is a newly formed digitalisation working group. The IT systems that are there have their limitations and capacity issues,” said Ms Blessington.

“Different local authorities do have different options available in terms of both applications and payments. We don’t want to tie ourselves to a system that can’t do everything.

“We are looking at progressing more application forms online, and trying to fix the low hanging fruit first and work from there.”She continued that despite the move towards developing online services, the in-person and postal options will remain also.