Notice of the making of this Statutory Instrument was published in

“Iris Oifigiúil” of 9th March, 2021.

I, MICHEÁL MARTIN, Taoiseach, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by section 25 (1) of the Statistics Act 1993 (No. 21 of 1993) and, other than in relation to paragraph 2 of the Schedule to the following Order, for the purpose of giving full effect to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019¹ in so far as it relates to Article 6(2)(c) thereof, hereby order as follows:

1. This Order may be cited as the Statistics (Information and Communication Technologies Survey) Order 2021.

2. (1) In this Order –

“Covid-19” means a disease caused by infection with the virus SARS-CoV-2 and specified as an infectious disease in accordance with Regulation 6 of, and the Schedule to, the Infectious Diseases Regulations 1981 ( S.I. No. 390 of 1981 ) or any variant of the disease so specified as an infectious disease in those Regulations;

“Regulation” means Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2019¹ ;

“survey” means the Information and Communication Technologies Survey conducted by the Central Statistics Office for the purposes of obtaining from undertakings to which this Order applies information specified in the Schedule, including for the purposes of compliance with the Regulation.

(2) A word or expression that is used in this Order and also used in the Regulation has the same meaning in this Order as in the Regulation, other than where the context otherwise requires.

3. This Order applies to an undertaking that is classified for statistical purposes under section C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, L, M or N or division 95 of NACE Rev. 2 as set out in Annex I to Regulation (EC) No. 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006² , as amended by Regulation (EC) No. 295/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2008³ , Regulation (EU) No. 70/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January 2012⁴ and Regulation (EU) 2019/1243 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019⁵ .

4. A requirement on undertakings to which this Order applies to provide, once only and for the purposes of the survey, information the general nature of which is specified in the Schedule, in relation to each year in the period from 2021 to 2025 is hereby prescribed.

5. The Statistics (Information and Communication Technologies Survey) Order 2018 ( S.I. No. 524 of 2018 ) is revoked.

SCHEDULE

Article 4

1. Information regarding the following, as it relates to the undertaking concerned during the year to which the information relates:

(a) main business activity;

(b) average number of employees and self-employed persons, in the previous year;

(c) total value of turnover (excluding VAT), in the previous year;

(d) number of employees and self-employed persons, or percentage of the total number of employees and self-employed persons, who have access to the internet for business purposes;

(e) ICT systems and their usage;

(f) use of the internet and other electronic networks;

(g) e-commerce;

(h) e-business processes and organisational aspects;

(i) use of ICT to exchange information and services with governments and public administrations;

(j) ICT competence and the need for ICT skills;

(k) barriers to use of ICT, the internet and other electronic networks, e-commerce and e-business processes;

(l) ICT expenditure and investment;

(m) ICT security and trust;

(n) use of ICT and its impact on the environment;

(o) access to and use of the internet and other network technologies for connecting objects and devices;

(p) access to and use of technologies providing the ability to connect to the internet or other networks from anywhere at any time;

(q) electronic sharing of information;

(r) internet of things;

(s) use of cloud computing services;

(t) use of artificial intelligence;

(u) invoicing;

(v) use of 3D printing;

(w) Big Data analysis;

(x) use of Radio Frequency Identification technologies;

(y) use of robotics;

(z) e-sustainability.

2. Information regarding the impact due to the threat to public health presented by Covid-19 on ICT usage and e-commerce as they relate to the undertaking concerned.

3. Information on the time taken by the undertaking to complete the questionnaire, form or other record prepared by the Director General for the collection of the information referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2.

GIVEN under my Official Seal,

2 March, 2021.

MICHEÁL MARTIN,

Taoiseach.

1 OJ No. L 327, 17.12.2019, p. 1

1 OJ No. L 327, 17.12.2019, p. 1

2 OJ No. L 393, 30.12.2006, p. 1

3 OJ No. L 97, 9.4.2008, p. 13

4 OJ No. L 32, 3.2.2012, p. 1

5 OJ No. L. 198, 25.7.2019, p. 241