Waterford Fine Gael Senator and General Election candidate John Cummins has raised serious deficiencies in the service being offered by the HSE for Civil Registrations in both Dungarvan and Waterford City. According to Senator Cummins the Dungarvan Civil Registration office has been temporarily closed and the Waterford City office reduced to three days a week because of ‘staffing issues’.
Speaking in Seanad Eireann, Senator Cummins said “In Waterford, two locations are designated for civil registrations, Dungarvan and Waterford City. However, it has come to my attention in recent times that the Dungarvan office has been temporarily closed and the Waterford city office has had its opening hours reduced to three days a week due to staffing constraints. This I can assure you Minister is having a very serious impact on the public in Waterford and it is simply unacceptable to me as a public representative. If I was to close my Dungarvan constituency office and restrict my Waterford city constituency office to 3 days a week, I don’t believe I would be providing an adequate service to the public”.
He cited examples of people having to wait seven weeks for an appointment to register a birth and six weeks for an appointment to register a death, saying it was simply an untenable situation. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that temporarily closing the Dungarvan office was going to place an additional demand on the Waterford City office so to also have this service curtailed to 3 days a week is resulting in a huge backlog which needs to be addressed immediately and if this means the temporary redeployment of staff from neighbouring areas to ensure an efficient service is provided to the people of Waterford then that must be done. It shouldn’t take me raising this in Seanad Eireann for Human Resources to effect this change”.
Referencing correspondence with the Office of the Registrar General which stated ‘all options to provide cross cover regionally’ had been undertaken, however with current staffing levels, it is not possible to provide previous levels of service’, Senator Cummins said “Minister, I don’t believe that sufficient effort has been made to provide cross cover regionally. If you can access full services in surrounding counties and yet you can’t access the service in Waterford in any sort of a reasonable time span, that is not an acceptable situation and signposting parents or those who have lost a loved one to a neighbouring county is frankly insulting”.
Responding to Senator Cummins, Fianna Fail Minister Ann Rabbitte referenced the advances which have been made to move the registration of births to an online system for those with a MyGovID account. “The Department have confirmed how they are trying to move into that whole digital space, to make the system more flexible and more timely, however it is also important to have that choice piece. I think your suggestions in relation to an interim solution, while recruitment is taking place in the Waterford office and the matters in the Dungarvan office are also prioritised is sensible. I do think people when they loose a loved one, actually trying to find mygov.ie and trying to find things online, it’s a very lack of compassionate approach. I actually do think a person centred approach is best. The people that work in those offices are amazing people and they have great expertise in dealing with people who have trauma so I will certainly bring it back to Minister Donnelly”.