Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Question 64: To ask the Minister for Social and Family Affairs if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the general public can not get through to the child benefit phone number in Donegal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28560/07]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The child benefit office is responsible for the administration of the child benefit scheme and the early child care supplement scheme which my Department administers for the Office of the Minister for Children. There are over 570,000 customers, and 1.1 million children are currently receiving payments totalling over €2.6 billion in 2007.

The child benefit office operates a phone service using a lo-call number which allows customers to contact the office from anywhere in the country for the cost of a local call. The phone service in the child benefit office is staffed from 9.15 a.m. to 5.15 p.m. A total of six staff is dedicated to phone answering duties. With the increase in the child benefit customer base in recent years and the introduction of the early child care supplement last year, there has been an increase of 75% in the number of phone calls received in the office since 2005. The number of calls received in 2005 was 187,000, which increased to 281,000 in 2006 and is estimated to reach 330,000 this year.

To date this year, over 221,000 calls have been answered in the child benefit section, representing around 75% of all calls to the section. At non-peak times, that is, weeks in which there is no payday, the percentage of calls answered is regularly in excess of 90%. On certain days, particularly before and after the paydays for both child benefit and early child care supplement, the level of phone calls received increases significantly and this can lead to delays in calls being answered. Up to four additional staff are allocated to phone-answering duties during these peak periods to minimise the waiting times experienced.

On the day the Deputy reports difficulty in contacting the office, a total of 1,950 calls were received, almost double the normal daily volume. This surge in calls was primarily due to the fact that child benefit had been paid the previous day. Technical difficulties were also being experienced at this time and this had a negative impact on the call answering service.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

My Department's strategy is to continue to develop our customer channels, namely, phone, call-in, and online services, in order to provide a quality customer service whereby customers can choose the channel that best suits them for particular inquiries. To this end the telephony infrastructure has been upgraded over the past year to support this programme of developments and a new phone management system will be installed in my Department's Letterkenny office in 2008. My Department is also currently engaged in a tendering process to procure a text messaging facility which will be deployed in 2008. This will facilitate the acknowledgement of claims, in order to reduce the need for customers to contact us by phone, as well as providing an additional channel for forms requests. The position regarding the levels of phone calls and the ability to respond is being constantly monitored to ensure disruption to the service is kept to a minimum.

Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Last Monday week I spent one hour and five minutes on the phone to Donegal without getting a reply. I was put through to answering machines with Irish accents, Polish accents and other accents, but I could not get through to get information for a constituent. If I am in that position, in what position are members of the general public? This problem happens with most public services nowadays. We get answering machines but no reply nor anyone to deal with problems. I cannot understand how the public puts up with it.

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I would not seek to justify what happened to the Deputy or to anyone else. It is utterly unacceptable and I have made that clear in the Department. We have tried to put extra staff in there to cope with the volumes on certain days. It appears that on the particular day the Deputy called, there were technical problems with the phone system which compounded the problem. I hope that if the Deputy tries again, he will not have a similar experience. I am sure he will test the system again and I would be interested to know how he gets on. The information available to me is that people are getting responses, although the number of calls goes through the roof on the day before and the day after payments.

Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Minister stated that he has four extra staff available on some of those days. Would it not make more sense to have those people working in that section on a longer-term basis? Many of these people will be calling from payphones or mobile phones, so even with a lo-call number, waiting for an hour will be quite expensive for them. Can the Minister re-examine this to ensure there are sufficient staff to deal with very genuine queries from people?

Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I put down the question to alleviate the problem for the general public. It is alright for public representatives, as they have other lines to call. However, this was a particular case and I tried to call from my office in Galway. The caller first hears a 30 second answering machine outlining the various options. It is far more important for members of the public to speak to somebody on the other line than to listen to an answering machine telling them to press one or another button and getting no response at the end of all of that.

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I have experienced the same frustration myself, but it does not just apply to the public sector. It also applies to many of the private companies providing services in this country. I have given up trying to get through to some major companies in this country just to do my own personal business. It drives me absolutely nuts to be told to press one button or another by an answering machine. That is not a good service and it should not be tolerated in either the public or the private sector. It is my objective that every single member of the Department be as productive as possible and use our human resources for the maximum benefit of the public. It is a huge service Department that deals with over 1 million customers every week. There are many cases where it has been highly commended for the service it has provided. We want to resolve any problems and where we can improve the service, we will do so.