Sir, \u2013 The embarrassment of being put off the bus in front of my neighbours, with an out-of-date public service card, with very small print, was facing me, having not received a letter I was informed was posted to me pre-Christmas.<\/p>\n
A quick internet search for a number to ring was easy. The pre-recorded message, interspersed with music I could dance a jig to, informed me that all lines were busy and an \u201cagent\u201d would be with me as soon as possible. Eventually my call was answered, followed by a number of questions, including what was my mother\u2019s maiden name. I was advised to contact my local Intreo Centre (Department of Social Protection), yes another new name now! I didn\u2019t relish doing so based on past experience.<\/p>\n
I called in to D\u2019Olier House in Dublin and in the space of five minutes my faith in public service was restored. I met the most helpful, professional woman with a wonderful smile that would brighten one\u2019s day, Joan. She even offered to give me a letter to ensure my bus trip would be embarrassment-free pending arrival of my updated card. Joan clearly saw me as a fellow human being, not just a statistic to facilitate box-ticking. We clearly need people like her to help people feel they do matter, and there are a lot of people needing services in our technical-dependent age who feel they don\u2019t matter. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n
ALICE LEAHY,
\nDirector of Services,
\nAlice Leahy Trust,
\nDublin 8.<\/p>\n
See: https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/opinion\/letters\/2024\/03\/27\/the-human-factor-is-key-to-helping-citizens\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Faith in public service is restored Sir, \u2013 The embarrassment of being put off the bus in front of my neighbours, with an out-of-date public service card, with very small print, was facing me, having not received a letter I was informed was posted to me pre-Christmas. A quick internet search for a number to … Continue reading Irish Times: The human factor is key to helping citizens<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5998"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6000,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5998\/revisions\/6000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aliceleahytrust.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}