Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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4. To ask the Taoiseach whether his office has a working voicemail/messaging system to track phone calls it may not pick up; and, if not, when did his Department’s voicemail service discontinue and the reason for this. [44538/25]

Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The telephony system used by the Department of the Taoiseach includes voicemail functionality and voicemail is used extensively by staff across the Department.

The Taoiseach’s Office receives a high volume of calls daily on issues of public concern and the Taoiseach’s Private Secretary is made aware of matters raised. Members of the public who contact the Taoiseach’s Office by telephone are also routinely requested to email or write to the Office with full details of the issue they wish to raise if that is deemed to be a more appropriate means of conveying the information. This practice is in place to ensure that the official record reflects the issue/concern as documented by the individual raising the matter and not a third-party interpretation of their issue/concern.

The Taoiseach’s Office can, from time to time, be the subject of phone pickets. The volume of calls to the Taoiseach’s Office increases significantly on days when phone pickets take place. Given that the Taoiseach’s Office is subject to phone pickets, it is not feasible to operate a voicemail service in that Office. For the duration of time that a phone picket is underway, the staff in the Taoiseach’s Office answer as many calls as they can, but it is sometimes not possible for all calls to be answered. For the duration of a phone picket, the level of correspondence received by the Taoiseach's Office also increases significantly which indicates that members of the public avail of the alternative means of contacting the Taoiseach's Office when the phone lines are busy.