LIMERICK City and County Council were the local authority to receive the second highest level of complaints to the Ombudsman in 2022.
That’s according to recently released figures from the Office of the Ombudsman, who oversees complaints made about public service bodies.
Limerick City and County Council were the council with the second highest amount of complaints in 2022 with 86, behind Dublin with 200 complaints.
The Ombudsman, Ger Deering, said the majority of complaints related to housing issues.
Nationally, a total of 1,269 complaints about local authorities, which represented a 2 per cent drop on the previous year.
2022 saw the highest number of complaints ever made to the Ombudsman’s Office, with 4,791 complaints about public service bodies including the HSE and Tusla.
According to the Ombudsman, the majority of complaints were made about the Passport Service following delays in issuing passports, with 835 complaints.
“It is expected that there will be a significant fall-off in such complaints in 2023 as the Passport Office engaged constructively with the Ombudsman’s Office throughout 2022 to help resolve the issues and improve its customer service,” the Ombudsman said in a statement.
The Department of Social Protection had over 600 complaints made, coming in with 621.
There were 300 official complaints about the HSE, with 104 about Tusla.
Mr Deering said that the Office of the Ombudsman would “continue to investigate complaints received, and work with public service providers to help improve services and reduce the necessity for people to make complaints.”
“We will also continue to engage in outreach activity to ensure maximum accessibility to our services,” he concluded.
