Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the reply. Coming from a rural county, I am excited by the possibilities afforded by remote working to a place like Kerry. As I said, we will be dealing with Covid-19 for a long time.

I have a concern about contacting some Departments, although none of these is the Minister's Department. There is a difficulty in our office getting through to some Departments. When we got through to one we were told it was like a ghost town and when calls were transferred, nobody answered the phone. There is nothing on the websites to indicate that phones are not being answered and that only emails will be responded to. I wonder if extra facilities or staffing can be put in place to ensure the same level of service is maintained across all Departments. For example, staff in a school in Kerry contacted the Department to try to find out what was happening with broadband and were advised to contact their local representative. The staff did that somewhat reluctantly, unfortunately.

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