Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 April 2025
286. Deputy James Geoghegan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will detail how many physical letters the Minister’s offices and the customer service team in the Department received from the public in 2024; whether those letters are digitised; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18457/25]
View answer287. Deputy James Geoghegan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will detail how many emails the Minister’s offices and the customer service mailbox the Department received from the public in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18474/25]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 286 and 287 together.
My office, and those of my colleagues, Minister of State Alan Dillon and Minister of State Malcolm Noonan, received an exceptionally high number of emails and letters in hard copy from a range of sources on a wide variety of matters in 2024.
Accordingly, it is not possible to determine the number of those emails or letters that were received from the public. However, correspondence received in each of the Ministers’ offices from members of the public, or from public representatives on behalf of members of the public, requesting information on matters directly relating to the functions of my Department are tracked in an e-Correspondence system. I can confirm that over the course of 2024 a total of 5,878 representations were received in my Department.
In addition, my Department has a dedicated Customer Service email address which is available to make enquiries on matters related to the work of the Department. A total of 5,254 emails, primarily from members of the public, were received to this email account in 2024.
All hard copy correspondence received in the Ministers’ offices and the Customer Service Unit is scanned and recorded electronically for processing and, where applicable, recorded on the eCorrespondence system mentioned above.
