Our customer service promise
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From: Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science
- Published on: 10 May 2021
- Last updated on: 20 April 2023
- Our aim
- Our promise to you
- How we communicate
- Access Officers
- Equal Status policy
- Service in Irish
- Training
- Give us feedback or make a complaint
- How you communicate with us
- Contact points/phone numbers
- Customer Charter
Our Customer Charter sets out the standard of service you can expect from the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.
Please note that the charter does not affect your legal rights and does not give you new legal rights.
Our aim
We aim to provide you with a professional, efficient and polite service. We will also do our best to improve the standards of our service.
Our promise to you
Your satisfaction is very important to us. We aim to achieve this by:
- giving you the best possible service and advice
- treating you in a proper, fair, unbiased and polite way
- making sure we protect your legal rights to equal treatment, when you use our services
- meeting any special need you may have, where possible
How we communicate
Telephone communication
You can call us on:
- (01) 889 6400
- (01) 889 2466
- (01) 889 2344
We will answer your call:
- Monday to Thursday: 9:00am to 5:45pm
- Friday: 9:00am to 5:15pm
We will:
- try to answer your call quickly
- identify ourselves and our area of work
- be polite and helpful, and do our best to provide you with clear and correct information
- take your details and call you back at a suitable time, if we cannot give you an answer straight away
- only connect you to voicemail when the person you want to speak to is unavailable
- do our best to respond to voicemail messages within one working day
Written communication
When you write to us, we will:
- aim to acknowledge your communication within five working days of getting it
- provide a final reply within 20 working days
- explain any delay to you before the 20-day period is up
- provide you with full contact details and a reference number, where relevant
If your communication is for another government department or body, we will pass it on to that department, and tell you what we have done with it
Visit us
When you want to visit us in person, we will:
- be available to meet you by appointment, during normal office hours
- greet you politely, be fair and helpful, and deal with your enquiries as quickly as possible
- provide suitable meeting facilities and make sure our offices are clean and safe
- make sure that our offices are accessible for people with disabilities
Access Officers
Access Officer for Information: Caroline Whelan
- Email:
Access officer, Marlborough Street Complex: Peter Carroll
- Address:
- Marlborough Street, Dublin 1, D01 RC96
- Telephone:
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01 889 6506
Access Officer, Saint Stephen’s Green Office: Andrew Devlin
Access Officer, Tullamore Office: Deirdre Bane
- Telephone:
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(087) 705 6819
Equal Status policy
We commit to providing a service that all our customers can use and that treats them equally.
We will:
- do our best to make sure our service considers the needs of particular groups of customers
- ask for advice from our customers, to make sure that we look after their accessibility needs
- provide suitable staff training to support these commitments
Service in Irish
If you want to deal with the Department through the Irish language, we will make every effort to accommodate you.
Training
We will invest in customer service training for staff, in particular for staff who deal with the public.
Give us feedback or make a complaint
If you want to complain, make a suggestion on how we could improve our service, or ask a question, you can email, phone or contact us by post.
Department customer service
- Address:
- 52 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, D02 DR67
- Telephone:
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01 889 2448;
01 889 2442
We have designed our complaint procedures to help you to make a complaint. This lets us respond and put things right, where possible.
We’re also committed to asking our customers how we’re doing. You can help us by:
- providing comments, making a complaint, or making a suggestion about our service
- filling out and returning any customer survey forms we may send you
Where to go after you complain to us
If you’ve complained, but you’re unhappy with our response, you can appeal to the Office of the Ombudsman, or the Ombudsman for Children.
Contact the Ombudsman
Office of the Ombudsman,
18, Lower Lesson Street, Dublin 2
Phone: (01) 639 5600
LoCall: 1890 223 030
Fax: (01) 6395674
Email: ombudsman@ombudsman.gov.ie
Contact the Ombudsman for Children
Office of the Ombudsman for Children,
Millennium House, 52-56 Great Strand Street, Dublin 1
Phone: (01) 865 6800
Freephone: 1800 20 20 40
Email: oco@oco.ie
How you communicate with us
We can help you best if you:
- provide any information that is relevant to your enquiry
- provide any relevant documents and reference numbers
- follow any checklists or guidelines that you’ve been given
- treat our staff and other customers with courtesy and respect
Contact points/phone numbers
You can find a list of contact points at the Who Does What website.
Customer Charter
