Vol. 491 No. 3
177 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Public Enterprise the procedures, if any, in place for complaints regarding public enterprises such as the ESB and Iarnród Éireann; the conditions under which complaints may be made; the powers, if any, these procedures have; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11971/98]
Customer services by the State bodies under the aegis of my Department, including complaints procedures, are day-to-day operational issues in which I have no statutory function. However, the commercial State bodies under the aegis of my Department have committed themselves to the code of practice for the delivery of services to customers of commercial State bodies published in January 1997. This code of practice involved establishing a well publicised and readily available complaints procedure and a satisfactory system of redress as well as making every effort to resolve problems-complaints to customers' satisfaction. All the State bodies under the aegis of my Department have systems in place to deal with customers' complaints. Some of these have already been formalised into customers' chapters or are in the process of being formalised. In addition, a new customer complaints commissioner has recently been appointed by ESB.
As the Deputy is aware, statutory responsibility for dealing with all complaints from the public including complaints against State bodies rests with either or both the Ombudsman and the Director of Consumer Affairs. Moreover, the Director of Telecommunications Regulation has certain powers to investigate disputes regarding the provision of voice telephony services, provided such a complaint is not the subject of an investigation under the Ombudsman Act, 1980. The question of whether State bodies should continue to be within the remit of the Ombudsman if and when their sectors are liberalised requires to be addressed in the near future.
