Áine Brady (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this debate on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Deputy Hanafin. I thank Senator McCarthy for raising this important matter. The Department of Social and Family Affairs delivers a front line service to its customers through a network of 62 local offices and 62 branch offices. The main services provided from these offices include jobseekers payments, one-parent family payments and a customer information service. The 62 local offices are staffed by departmental staff and the branch offices are run by branch managers who are employed under a contract for service by the Department to administer certain social welfare services to members of the public in their catchment areas.

Due to the sad and untimely death of the branch manager in Dunmanway, arrangements were put in place immediately to ensure continuity of service to customers. All claims originally catered for in Dunmanway were transferred to the Department's office in Bantry as an interim arrangement to ensure that payments were not interrupted. The number of customers involved was approximately 350 and arrangements were subsequently made to distribute the claims between five neighbouring branch offices in Bandon, Bantry, Clonakilty, Macroom and Skibbereen.

In cases where customers are living more than 16 kilometres from their designated branch office, their signing arrangements were changed to quarterly signing as opposed to the normal monthly signing arrangements. This means that these customers need only call to the branch office once every three months. Service to customers has not been interrupted by these arrangements and payments are continuing as they fall due. It is open to people residing in the Dunmanway catchment area who become unemployed to make a claim for jobseekers benefit or allowance at any of our offices convenient to them. Customers claiming illness benefit can forward medical certificates directly to the illness benefit section in Dublin or to any local or branch office. The service provided by the social welfare inspector in Dunmanway is being maintained. The office of the inspector is open to the public on Tuesday mornings and deals with any information queries.

As provided for in the Department's modernisation action plan, a strategic review of customer-facing services was undertaken in 2008. The purpose of the review was to determine what services will be delivered in the Department's front line environment in future. It was undertaken to identify the range of the Department's customer-facing services and related activities that would be most appropriately delivered in a front line environment, the locations from which these services would be best delivered and the layout of the offices that would enable their optimum delivery. Having considered the nature and extent of future customer-facing services, the terms of reference for this review provide, inter alia, for recommendations on the criteria to be used to determine the locations in which the Department should have a local or branch office presence.

The review noted that, given the significant ongoing changes as part of the channels programme, the Department's future service delivery model will be radically different from the current model. I will supply examples of some of the changes that will transform the service. A full range of alternative channels to include Internet, telephony and SMS services will significantly reduce the number of people calling to local and branch offices. The signing on process will be revised to take advantage of these services and will be based on customer profiling and risk assessment. An appointment system will be put in place to conduct a range of services, thereby reducing the footfall in offices.

Given the significant impact that these changes will have on customer levels as key criteria for determining the location of office presences, the Department will carry out a review of locations for services once the channel strategy is implemented across the local and branch office network. The Department is satisfied that the service being provided to people from the Dunmanway catchment area meets service requirements and there are no immediate plans to open an office in the town.