Social welfare officer told immigrant to ‘go back home’

Some "serious customer service issues" exist in the Department of Social Protection, including racism and rudeness to immigrants, according to a new report.

One immigrant was allegedly told to “go back home to **** or wherever”. Another was reportedly told by a social welfare officer “too many people from **** are coming here to take benefits for free”.

The report, Person or Number? 2, was commissioned by a number of non-governmental organisations. It will be launched today by the Minister of State for Equality, New Communities and Culture, Aodhán Ó Ríordáin. It is a second examination of issues faced by immigrants trying to access the services of the Department of Social Protection. The first report was published in 2012.

The new report is based on a 35-case sample of immigrants who access services and an online survey of 37 managers of citizen information services.

Language problems

It found at least five cases where it was clear that applicants had inadequate English-language skills to fully understand the application procedures they were involved in. In none of these cases was the person offered an interpreter.

Fiona Hurley, of Nasc, the Irish Immigrant Support Centre, said: "Customer service issues need to be tackled as a priority, as it is unacceptable that anyone should be subjected to any kind of aggressive or abusive behaviour or racism when they present to a State service."

Noeline Blackwell, of the Free Legal Advice Centre, said frontline staff at the department had faced "unprecedented pressure", but said this was "not an acceptable excuse".

The average length of time for processing supplementary welfare allowance payments is 20 weeks, which is described in the report as “unacceptable”. It found that there was a high level of incorrect refusals made on applications for payments.