Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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1960. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of complaints his Department received under the customer service charter in 2017, 2018 and to date in 2019; if his attention has been drawn to issues and or problems in having complaints registered; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35647/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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My Department is committed to providing a high quality service to all our customers. On occasion, it receives complaints from members of the public in relation to their interaction with the Department and we welcome these insofar as they may lead to service improvements. My Department considers every complaint received and aims to resolve it within 15 working days, in accordance with our Quality Customer Service Charter, unless there are particular reasons why this cannot be done.

The number of complaints received in my Department in since 2017 (other than Met Éireann) is set out in the first table below. Since the introduction of GDPR, my Department’s policy in relation to correspondence received in its Quality Customer Service office is to retain emails and letters for no longer than 12 months unless the issue is not resolved within that time.

The table below gives the number of complaints recorded by Met Éireann (a Division of my Department) on its customer service system and refer to a range of issues relating to its high profile service to the public. While there was a significant increase in complaints to Met Éireann in 2018, the extreme weather last year impacted on the number received, as did the introduction of Met Éireann’s new website and app, which would be expected in the early period following the introduction of new services of this kind.

My Department’s Customer Charter and Customer Service Action Plan, which set out the complaints process, are available on my Department’s website at www.housing.gov.ie/corporate/customer-service/quality-customer-service.