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No sign the Department will sort out its telephone waiting time

Mar 4, 2016 | ICSA in the Media | 0 comments

The Department has given no indication that it will significantly improve its communications with farmers despite comments by the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney recently.

In response to questioning from Agriland as to whether it will be changing its telephone service, the Department said it is keeping the situation with regard to telephone calls under ongoing review and provides additional resources to deal with calls as the need arises at peak times, such as prior to scheme closing dates and during periods when advance and balancing payments are made.

It said that over the past number of weeks the Department has assigned a large number of additional, experienced staff to deal with telephone calls.

It says the number of calls has dropped considerably with the improved response times.

At the recent ICSA Annual Conference, the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney admitted that there have been problems around the communications of farmers’ payment status.

“Farmers have been picking up the phone looking for the status of your basic payment or other scheme and you probably didn’t get the answer you were looking for.”

He admitted the Department’s new system for dealing with queries hasn’t worked. “…where we separate the experts from the people on the phone, but then the people on the phone didn’t have the expertise to give you the answers you needed.

“I’m sorry about that. I’ll make sure we learn lessons about it and fix it,” he said.

Over the past number of months, there has been increasing disquiet in the farming community over problems contacting the Department of Agriculture.

The issue was raised at a recent Farmers Charter meeting, where the ongoing problems farmers are encountering making telephone contact with the Department, in order to resolve problems or deal with outstanding queries, was heard.

 

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