Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Jan 2001

Vol. 529 No. 1

Written Answers. - Departmental E-mail System.

Seán Haughey

Question:

772 Mr. Haughey asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the e-mail address to which members of the public should send queries relating to his Department; if his Department routinely replies to e-mails sent by the public; the time-scale for such responses; if e-mail inquiries addressed to officials in his Department are also processed within that time-scale; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1056/01]

Richard Bruton

Question:

840 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the arrangements he has in place to respond to e-mail queries to the address posted on the Department's website; the number of e-mail queries received during the last quarter of 2000; the number of these which had not received any response from the Department by 19 January 2001; and if he will make a statement on the adequacy of the system for responding to such e-mail queries. [1960/01]

Minister for the Environment and Local Government (Mr. Dempsey)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 772 and 840 together.

A number of e-mail addresses are available to members of the public who wish to send general queries to my Department. These include [e-mail]; press-office@ environ.irlgov.ie and [e-mail]. In addition, there are 21 further e-mail addresses posted in various documents on my Department's website which contain e-mail addresses for quer ies relating to specific areas of my Department's activities.

My Department's press office administers the correspondence e-mailed to the address for general queries posted on the website. This includes replying directly to the correspondent, forwarding the e-mail to the relevant section of my Department or to another Department for direct reply, as appropriate. In the case of unsolicited electronic junk mail ("spam"), such e-mails are deleted. The information sought in relation to the total number of e-mails received through my Department's website and the timescales within which a reply was provided is not readily available and its compilation would involve a disproportionate amount of time and work.

The Department's customer service action plan, a copy of which is available in the Oireachtas Library, sets standards of service for all correspondence received in the Department. This includes a commitment to issue a reply within 15 working days. Every effort is made to respond to all correspondence, including e-mails, received in my Department in accordance with the standards set in the plan. These standards are currently being reviewed in light of the revised quality customer service principles recently adopted for the Civil Service and in the context of a new customer action plan being drawn up.