Digital Government Excellence

CHAPTER 4Barry Lowry: Ireland

 

Barry Lowry has been the CIO for the Irish Government since April 2016 with the primary task of taking forward the government's digital agenda. He is also the chief advisor to the government on all digital matters affecting the state and its citizens.

Barry was previously the Director for IT Shared Services and Strategy and head of the IT Profession within the Northern Ireland Civil Service.

Barry is a Fellow of the Irish and British Computer Societies and is a former winner of the BCS Northern Ireland IT Professional of the Year. He was awarded an OBE. for services to the Northern Ireland government and the Northern Ireland computer industry in 2017.

 

 

 

Barry is a public servant at heart, the best of the breed. Deeply driven to the mission of serving, he blends this calling nicely together with social intelligence and with the technologist's training and a manager's thinking.

It must be this blend that has seen him take the digital work of government to a whole new level on several occasions, first in Northern Ireland and now in the Republic of Ireland. The challenge in the latter was to put the house in order, basically, and Barry surely has managed that. Through careful planning and relentless work on delivering the strategy, the Office of GCIO has also lifted Ireland to the ranks of digital government role models—including with their COVID-19 ...