Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

What Senator O'Rourke said would make great sense if it worked in practice. I made two 15-minute phone calls today to the Companies Office, but could not get through because of lack of staff in that office. The same is true in every Department and the problem is spreading to local authorities. It is not possible to ring without being put on hold for hours. We need some place where all those things are written down and we can identify the person responsible. We probably have the facility of having phone numbers that allow us to get straight through. However, ordinary people who ring up get an answering machine requesting them to press a different number depending on the section required. It does not work in a straightforward manner.