Social Media Terms and Conditions of Engagement

• The Department of Social Protection (DSP) uses social media platforms to enhance communication and engagement with our customers and stakeholders. Social media is particularly useful when the department needs to reach a wide audience to communicate important customer updates as well as news, events and initiatives.
• The department’s Press Office uses Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube for publicity campaigns, to announce changes and improvements to social welfare schemes, for example, Budget announcements and to promote events such as Jobs Fairs and Employer Briefings.
• The department’s use of Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn is to provide general information only. It cannot be used as an official channel by which customers can undertake transactions, make/update applications or receive information on their specific entitlements or payments. Any user with a specific scheme query will be referred to the relevant scheme area.
• The department’s YouTube channel is available at DSP YouTube. This account contains the department's video content and other content deemed to be of interest to our followers and comments are disabled.
• The department’s Customer Information team monitors Twitter to respond to tweets seeking general information and private messages as promptly as possible, during regular business hours from Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.
• Where a user needs to provide personal data to allow the department to answer a query, the user should contact the relevant business area directly and not use social media. Contact information for each scheme area is available on www.gov.ie.
• The department will not engage with any commentary that is deemed inappropriate, defamatory, offensive, abusive, threatening or libellous. The department reserves the right to block users and may report such commentary to the relevant social media platform.
• For privacy reasons, users should not publicly post comments which include personal information such as PPS numbers, telephone numbers or email addresses.
• The commentary, imagery and materials posted by users to the department’s social media accounts does not reflect the ideas and opinions of the department. The department accepts no responsibility for such content.
• Retweets of third party commentary are not endorsements of an opinion or comment.
• Failure to engage with comments should not be viewed as a refusal to comment on a particular issue.
• We welcome all comments and constructive feedback in relation to the department's payments, schemes and services.

The Customer Services and Communications Unit

Department of Social Protection