Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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1359. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if his Department plans to have a webchat service link on his Department website for members of the public to enquire regarding social welfare entitlements and so on. [45488/25]

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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My Department's website - gov.ie/welfare - is hosted on a platform operated and managed by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO) on behalf of other Government Departments. I understand that the OGCIO is currently developing chatbot technology for integration with the gov.ie platform. The initiative aims to provide members of the public with accessible, real-time support in relation to gov.ie content.

In relation to the Department of Social Protection's own platforms, the MyWelfare platform provides a secure online channel for customers to apply for and manage their interaction with a wide range of business areas across my Department as well as a number of other Contracting Authority services. Currently customers can avail of 36 separate schemes/services on MyWelfare. Government's target is to have 90% of services online by 2030.

My Department is currently considering the usefulness of adding webchat functionality to the MyWelfare platform. These considerations are in the context of a wider analysis of how we can improve the quality of our interactions with customers and enhance our ability to deal with straightforward queries efficiently while leaving more time for agents to resolve complex customer queries. We want to offer customers a wider choice of contact channels so that they can interact with us in the best way for them.