Fingal County Council partners with IBM to launch COVID-19 chatbot on fingal.ie website

Fingal County Council has successfully introduced a Virtual COVID-19 Assistant which is trained to answer questions from members of the public, in Irish and English, on its Community Call Response initiative or the availability of Fingal Services during the current pandemic.

The Council partnered with IBM, who are based in the Dublin Enterprise Zone in Dublin 15, and SureSkills Consulting to develop the chatbot after it became apparent that the pace and timescale of the COVID-19 pandemic will have long term implications for local government including the growing expectation for instant and remote access to trusted information as it evolves. 

When the pandemic struck back in March, Fingal County Council responded by working with IBM and Sureskills at pace to develop a virtual agent that has helped to answer the unprecedented flood of information requests and reduce the overload on Council’s call centres. 

The Virtual Assistant is integral to the work of the COVID-19 Fingal Community Call Forum and supports at risk members of the public in accessing non-emergency and non-medical supports and advice 24/7. 

Based on IBM Watson Assistant for Citizens on the IBM public cloud, the virtual assistant responds to common queries on Covid-19 in English. It combines Watson Assistant, Natural Language processing capabilities from IBM research and the AI search capabilities of Watson Discovery.

“IBM has years of experience helping global businesses and institutions use Natural Language Processing and other advanced AI technologies to better meet the demands of their customers. In applying these technologies to the COVID-19 crisis, Fingal County is demonstrating that AI has the power to be your agent during this uncertain time,” said Ronan Dalton, Chief Technical Officer, IBM Ireland.

Questions the agent can answer include, "Can a Volunteer collect my shopping?" or "I want to look at planning applications for my area?" If the Virtual Assistant does not have the answers it redirects the user to the specific information on the Council website or other websites related to the query.

The Chief Executive of Fingal County Council, AnnMarie Farrelly said: “By using this type of advanced technology we are making easier and quicker for citizens to access the information they are looking for. It has enhanced the Community Call Helpline service and is a key resource in the management and operation of our community support programme which we provide with our partner agencies and groups.”

The Virtual Assistant is deployed in a web browser and built with security that safeguards the privacy of the users. It has been designed to continuously evolve and learn through its use and user feedback. All responses are based on information from trusted sources.

The Fingal Community Call Forum includes over a dozen agencies and organisations from within Fingal and co-ordinates the operation to ensure that vulnerable members of the community or those living alone can access deliveries of groceries, medicine and fuels.

The different organisations provide important services like collection and delivery of essential items like food, ‘meals-on-wheels’, household items, fuel or medicine (in line with guidance).

The Mayor of Fingal, Cllr David Healy said: “There are a number of agencies currently doing excellent work in delivering care to older and vulnerable people in our communities. These groups are currently operating independently of each other and Fingal County Council’s role is to provide a targeted, integrated and coordinated approach to the delivery of these much-needed services to our more vulnerable citizens across the county during the COVID-19 pandemic.”