The Irish government plans to set up a cross-government implementation group on cloud computing. This group will support the implementation of the Programme for Government commitment on cloud computing. A recent report commission by Microsoft found that the cloud computing market in Ireland could be worth EUR 9.5 billion and employ 8,600 people by 2014.

The proposed Implementation Group will include representatives of relevant Departments as well as the Data Protection Commissioner, the IDA and Enterprise Ireland. The first meeting is proposed for later in July. The proposals were welcomed by ICT Ireland, IBEC group that represents the high-tech sector. ICT Ireland director Paul Sweetman said that for Ireland to become a world leader in cloud technology, it was important that the government took a lead as a user of cloud computing.