I propose to take Questions Nos. 30 and 65 together.
The objective of my Department's information policy is to ensure all our citizens are made aware of their entitlements under a broad range of social insurance, social assistance and other supports and are kept informed of changes and improvements as they occur. In line with that policy, my Department has in the past year issued more than 530,000 customised information leaflets to different groups of customers, including pensioners, lone parents, people with disabilities and carers. This initiative has been widely welcomed as an effective means of informing customers of their full entitlements.
As a further initiative my Department has issued a newsletter, Changing for a Changing Ireland, to every household in the country outlining our main schemes and services and the changing role of the Department. My Department worked at local level with a number of organisations in the voluntary and community sector in preparing the newsletter. The issue of this publication was the main project of our national welfare awareness week, which ran from 18 to 23 June this year. The purpose of the week was to highlight the range of social, community and family services that are available to support people “from cradle to grave”.
As part of its customer action plan, my Department seeks feedback from customers on a systematic basis on the quality of service to tailor the delivery of services, including information services, to meet their needs. Customer panels and customer surveys are among the mechanisms which are used for this purpose. The findings of these surveys are, in the main, very positive and show a high satisfaction rating with the services provided. Similar feedback will be sought on the Changing for a Changing Ireland publication and the findings will help to improve the overall provision of information to our customers. It is estimated that the costs including design, printing, postage etc. will be approximately £300,000. Some 1.44 million copies were printed, of which 40,000 were in Irish, and they are in the process of being distributed by An Post to every household in the country.