Vol. 529 No. 1
363 Mr. Haughey asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development 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. [1053/01]
424 Mr. R. Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development 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. [1957/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 363 and 424 together.
Members of the public may send queries to my Department by e-mail to the following address: information@daff.irlgov.ie.
During the last quarter of 2000, the information office of my Department received 303 e-mail queries, in addition to numerous telephone and written queries. All e-mail queries from the public to my Department are attended to on a daily basis. If a query cannot be answered directly by the information office in which it is first received it is forwarded to the relevant division in the Department or transferred to another Department or State agency as appropriate for a direct reply.
The time-scale for responses to inquiries from the public is set down in the Department's customer service action plan launched in 1998 which sets out specific undertakings including access to services and service delivery standards which all clients can expect in their dealings with my Department, normally within 20 days.
A revised customer service action plan is currently being drawn up and should be published in April 2001.
