What this is for

Every organisation has pieces of work that take too long, are repeated by hand, cost too much or never get done.

You will know some of yours: a quarterly report assembled from four people’s files; a funding application that takes a week; an archive nobody has time to sort.

We want them written down.

Some can already be done with existing tools. Others cannot. Until we know what the work is, we cannot tell the difference. Without a county-wide list, people are left guessing what Wexford organisations need.

Choose one piece of work and answer ten questions about it. The person who actually does it should fill in the form.

Your answer is private. It will be read by the small team running the register and compared with other entries. Its purpose is to find work that turns up again and again.

One awkward piece of work in one organisation may need a local fix. The same piece of work in forty organisations may be worth solving once for all of them.

There are two stages.

1. Find the work. This is the stage we are in now. We collect entries and look for work that keeps recurring.

2. Do the work. If the register shows a clear need, the aim is to set up a community-owned co-operative in Wexford to take it on. It would have to trade, get paid and cover its costs. It would not be a charity or a company built to sell.

We are not forming the organisation, buying equipment or promising services first. The work comes first. We will let the work decide what gets built.

The answers describe how Wexford organisations actually work. That information has value.

If it is held elsewhere, Wexford remains a customer of tools designed somewhere else for general use. If it is held here, it can help Wexford people build for work that actually exists here. The jobs and the money stay local.

We will use whatever works. The record should stay here, and work found in Wexford should create jobs in Wexford.

Every entry makes the record better. A useful record gives the county something concrete to bring to the Council, funders and national programmes.

It could. Automation can reduce the amount of paid work an organisation needs, and it would be dishonest to deny that.

But this register is not a list of people to replace. It records pieces of work that take too long, are repeated unnecessarily or are not being done.

Nothing will be built from a submission alone. Before any piece of work moves forward, the people who do it must be involved in deciding what should change, what should remain human and what happens with any time saved.

Some entries may describe missing capacity: applications not made, records not searched or reports delayed. Solving that work may allow an organisation to do more with the people it already has. Other cases may raise genuine employment questions. We will identify those questions rather than hide them.

Our aim is to keep the work of building, checking and maintaining useful tools in Wexford. That does not remove every risk from automation, but it gives the county some control over how it happens.

Now. The register is open and nearly empty.

Next. When the same piece of work keeps appearing, we work out what it would cost to solve and take the case to organisations that could pay for or support the work.

Then. If enough organisations need the work, we form the organisation to do it.

Computers come later. We can start on Ireland’s AI Factory Antenna, which gives small organisations and public bodies access to national computing. Local equipment comes later, if the work proves it is needed.

Submitting costs nothing and does not commit you to anything.

It adds one piece of work to the county’s record. If the same piece of work appears in other organisations, we may be able to solve it once for all of them. If you gave permission to be contacted, we may come back with a few questions. If you did not, we will not contact you.

We cannot give a timetable. It depends on how many organisations take part.

We have worked out what to collect, how to sort it and how to decide which pieces of work are worth taking further. The register itself has only a handful of entries.

That is where this stands. It becomes useful only when organisations describe the work they need done.