Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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894. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the reason Enniscorthy Intreo office has failed to respond to a complaint submitted (details supplied) in June 2022; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1288/23]

Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party)
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The Department of Social Protection commits in its Customer Charter to investigate and promptly deal with complaints impartially and in confidence.  There is also a commitment to acknowledge any complaint within 3 days of receipt and to issue a response to the complaint within 14 days.

On receipt of the parliamentary question a check was made to locate the complaint referred to in the question.  However, having made a full search the Department cannot find any record of a complaint having been received from the person concerned in June 2022 or since.

An officer from my department has contacted the person concerned to advise that the Department does not have a record of the complaint having been received.  Now that the Department is aware of the content of the complaint, the officer has also undertaken to deal with the complaint without further delay.

However, it should be noted that many of the items raised in the complaint refer to issues that would be a matter for the Sponsor Organisation, as the employer in this case.  As the Deputy will be aware the Community Employment (CE) programme is delivered through independent CE sponsoring organisations who are the legal employers of CE supervisors, assistant supervisors and participants.

The person concerned has been advised that a reply to his complaint will issue shortly.

I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.