John Cummins (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for taking the Commencement matter. She will agree that the work civil registration offices do daily to register births, deaths and marriages is invaluable. The staff in all of these offices are to be commended on the work they do. She will also agree with the importance of this essential service being located in areas that are easily accessible to the public and do not place an undue burden on the public when seeking to access such services, especially given the sensitivities around registering deaths and the importance of timely registration of births to access support payments. Two locations are designated for civil registrations in County Waterford: Dungarvan and Waterford city. However, it has come to my attention that the Dungarvan office is temporarily closed and the Waterford city office has had its opening hours reduced to three days a week due to staffing constraints. This is having a serious impact on the public in Waterford. It is not an acceptable situating to me as a public representative. If I was to close my constituency office in Dungarvan and restrict the opening hours of my constituency office in Waterford city to three days a week, I would not be providing a sufficient service to the public. That is the case at the moment with regards to civil registration.

For the purpose of this Commencement matter, I went online to book an appointment to register a birth in counties Wexford, Kilkenny and Tipperary. I was able to get an appointment this week or early next week in all of those locations. However, in Waterford, the earliest appointment I could get was 26 November, seven weeks away. That is not a tenable situation. The same goes for registering a death, which is even more sensitive. If I did this in Wexford, Kilkenny or Tipperary, I could get an appointment tomorrow whereas in Waterford, the earliest appointment is 19 November, six weeks away. Again, this is an untenable situation. It does not take a genius to figure out that an office in Dungarvan is going to be closed temporarily, there will be an additional strain on the office in the Waterford city. To have that reduced in tandem to three days a week is not working.It is not acceptable that the temporary redeployment of staff to ensure a sufficient service has not happened. It should not take me raising it in Seanad Éireann for human resources to effect this change. When I raised the matter with the office for the general register, the response I received was that in line with HSE recruitment policy, it has sought to backfill its vacant positions in both Dungarvan and Waterford but that with the current HSE recruitment restrictions, this is still in progress. The response continued that if the office receives approval to do so, it will proceed with recruitment, training and reinstatement of services. It noted that while the office had explored all options to provide cross-cover regionally, with current staffing levels it was not possible to provide previous levels of service.

I do not believe that sufficient effort has been made to provide that cross-cover regionally because if I can access an appointment in Kilkenny, Wexford or Tipperary tomorrow, and I cannot do so for six or seven weeks in Waterford, that is not providing cross-cover regionally. It also seems bizarre that the HSE is responsible for staffing this service, whereas the Department of Social Protection is in charge of civil registrations on the whole. This has to be addressed urgently. While I understand there have been some developments in registering births online literally in recent weeks, that is not the case for deaths. It is not acceptable that people in Waterford have to wait so long. This staffing issue needs to be addressed. If it means taking staff from other locations to fill the void in the short term while recruitment is ongoing, that needs to happen and it needs to start today.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I see the matter was addressed to the Minister for Social Protection-----

John Cummins (Fine Gael)
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It is actually health.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I do not know on whose behalf I am answering but I will answer it as it has been scripted for me. I thank the Senator for raising this matter. The civil registration service is an important service. There is a legal requirement on every person to notify the service of births, marriages and deaths that occur in the State and to do this in a timely manner. When a birth is registered, it automatically results in the allocation of a PPS number. This number is unique to each person and becomes the basis for identity and all other services delivered by the Department of Social Protection and other public bodies.

Registration data collected and recorded by the service allows for the compilation of vital statistics and the making of population and related projections by the Central Statistics Office. Data is used for economic, social and infrastructural planning, as well as providing a reliable and consistent data source for other Departments, public bodies, and institutions engaged in the provision of services, the management of public health and research. The civil registration service operates under the aegis of the Department of Social Protection. The General Register Office holds records of life events: births, deaths, marriages, civil partnerships, stillbirths and adoptions in Ireland. It also holds several sets of records relating to life events that are historic in nature.

Under the Act, local registration services are provided by the HSE through the civil registration service with offices situated locally delivering registration services directly to the public. I would like to take this opportunity to advise the House about the development of a new online birth registration service put in place by the Department of Social Protection as a consequence of the enactment of the Civil Registration (Electronic Registration) Act 2024 earlier this year. The new online service makes use of technology to provide a more flexible civil registration process and will be of value to parents of newborn children who may find it more convenient to use an online service to register the birth of their child.

This online service builds and expands on the temporary measures introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, which permitted births and deaths to be registered without a person having to attend at a civil registration office. The new online birth registration service will be available to persons who have an authenticated standard authentication framework environment, SAFE, identity following verification of their identity through the Department of Social Protection’s SAFE registration process and who have a verified MyGovID account.

Once the parent has completed the online birth registration he or she will be provided with a link to the HSE website, certificates.ie, in order to order a paper certificate. The Department of Social Protection estimates that the number of births registered online could be in the order of 26,000 per year. This is a provisional figure based on demographics and the average annual birth rate of approximately 58,000. In time, the online service, following further development work, will be available to register marriages online and to enable the next-of-kin of a deceased person to register a death online. These reforms are also about giving people greater flexibility when it comes to registering major life events and are designed to bring Ireland in line with practices in place in other countries.

The existing process of in-person registration for births and deaths will remain in place for those persons who wish to avail of it and as I mentioned at the outset, the local civil registration service is responsible for providing an in-person registration service to the public at a network of nationwide local offices that is provided and maintained by the HSE. These offices are operated by registrars, who are appointed by the HSE and overseen by a superintendent registrar who is appointed by the HSE to manage each registration area. We are just getting to the crux of it, Chair, with his flexibility. The superintendent registrar has control over the opening hours and staffing levels for each local office in their area. The Department of Social Protection does not have any role in the staffing arrangements of the local registration service as this is a matter for the HSE. However, the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, will bring the matter raised by the Senator about the staffing of these offices in Dungarvan and Waterford to the attention of our ministerial colleague with responsibility for the HSE, Deputy Donnelly.

John Cummins (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for her response but unfortunately it does not address the matter sufficiently. This is a staffing issue, yes. For some bizarre reason, the HSE is responsible for the staffing in these offices even though civil registration is actually under the remit of the Department of Social Protection. In the first line of her response, the Minister of State mentioned registration in a timely manner. That cannot happen in the Waterford offices at present.

First, it cannot happen it in Dungarvan and west Waterford because the office is closed temporarily and second, it cannot happen in Waterford city because it has been restricted to three days a week. What has to happen here, and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure it out, is that some staff need to be redeployed into the Waterford area to manage it while the recruitment process is ongoing. That is the responsibility of human resources and it should not take me raising it on the floor of the Seanad for that to happen. I ask the Minister of State who, given her role, has a leg in a couple of Departments, to take this up for me with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Absolutely. The Senator saw me trying to figure out which Minister I was answering for at the beginning. The answer I received from the Department of Social Protection clearly tells me the process involved in it. It also clearly tells us how they are trying to move to that digital space to make it more flexible, timely and everything else. It is also important to have that choice. I will, of course, bring it back to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly.

I note the Senator's suggestions on an interim solution while recruitment is taking place in the Waterford office and while whatever matters are happening in Dungarvan are being prioritised. When people lose a loved one, trying to find mygov.ie and to do things online is an approach that lacks compassion. A person-centred approach is paramount. The people who work in those office are amazing people and they have great expertise in dealing with people with trauma. I will certainly bring it back to the Minister.