Over 300 complaints in Cork to Ombudsman
COMPLAINTS by Corkonians to the Ombudsman topped over 300 complaints about public service providers, many of which were directed at Local Authorities.
Ombudsman Peter Tyndall received 3,021 complaints last year. Of that figure, 324 complaints were made by people living in Cork in 2017.
Many of the complaints were against the Local Authority, with 77 against Cork County council and 66 against Cork City council. Nationally, there were 852 complaints against Local Authorities, as well as 608 Health and Social Care complaints. However, Government Departments received a massive chunk of the complaints, with 953 listed.
The number of complaints about private nursing homes doubled from 30 in 2016 to 63 in 2017. The Ombudsman recently appeared before the Oireachtas Public Petitions Committee to discuss his experience of dealing with nursing home complaints, including those about ‘social’ charges and care in nursing homes. He published a summary of key cases in ‘ The Ombudsman’s Nursing Home Casebook’ earlier this year.
In addition, his report highlights a number of investigations his Office carried out last year, including the investigation into the Magdalene ‘restorative justice scheme.’ Mr Tyndall said that the Minister for Justice and Equality has now accepted all of his recommendations, including those in relation to women wrongly excluded from the scheme and women who lacked the capacity to fully access it.
Also in his annual report, he spoke about his first year of dealing with complaints from asylum seekers and refugees living in the direct provision accommodation system.
“We received 115 complaints from people living in direct provision centres in 2017,” he said. “Many of these were about transfers to other centres or accommodation issues. We have an ongoing programme of visits to all accommodation centres and resolve many complaints informally on the ground.”