What is the most useless government dept / agency you've ever dealt with?

jetsonx

What is the most useless government dept. / agency you've ever dealt with?

The general laziness, sloppiness and general "i don't care - I just pass the buck" attitude that exists in any Irish government department or agency I deal with is really shocking. The culture in these organisations seems to be just do the bare minimum work and then collect pay at end of week.

What has been your experience of Irish government departments or agencies?

c_man

That's a tough one. So many deserving winners. I can't decide.

Though the most efficient are most definitely the Revenue Commissioners. They take my money better than any woman could.

NothingMan

The only ones I really deal with are the revenue and motor tax offices and my issues have always been dealt with efficiently and well, and that's only if the very simple and user friendly online systems for both are not an option which they usually are.

syklops

I dont even drive and I hate the RSA.

OldGoat

Wages and saleries. I have to keep a really close eye on them.

demakinz

The social welfare.

While working in a language school, my experience with the GNIB was woeful. They yelled at students trying to get visas sorted, and i had to step in, and I wasn't the only one. Other times they would just sit there refusing to check a file/form I'd sent in and just tried giving me a list of reasons why they couldn't process it without even looking at it.
Unbelievable.

dirtyghettokid

fas

mikemac

Department of Agriculture

The most inefficent department there is

When single farm payments came in hundreds found they were no longer needed for administration.
Some transferred, of course nobody got made redundant

Revenue have the superb ROS, Dept of Agriculture wants forms with hundred of stock numbers written and then posted in. And then someone is paid to type all these into the system.
They won't accept spreadsheets or Excel files. Paper and biro please

They keep themselves busy with inefficient administration and vent their frustration during farm inspections with their harsh interpretation of rules

The only decent project they've done in the last decade was their mapping system

Sack the lot of them and rebuild the department from scratch :mad:

veryangryman

CAO - Terribly arrogant crowd to deal with on the phone.

orourkeda

Department of the environment.

meditraitor

Fingal County Council, on so many levels

syklops

veryangryman wrote: »

CAO - Terribly arrogant crowd to deal with on the phone.

And they only work for about 3 months of the year

trad

Waterways Ireland for my money.

When's the last time you saw a boat on the canals, particularly in Dublin. Nice cycle path and cut the grass, that's all they're interested in. Boats cause too many problems like opening and closing the lock gates.

Wurly

The HSE. By a country mile!

wild_cat

mikemac wrote: »

They won't accept spreadsheets or Excel files. Paper and biro please

Are you serious?


I understand that some farmers need to use pen and paper, I couldn't imagine my Dad sitting down with Excel.

But surely it is more efficient if they receive it in a digital format? Plus I presume that a lot of accountants would be filling in the forms for the farmers anyway and they'd surely want to do it in a digital format.....

I've always wondered why my Mother started to complain about glorified envelope lickers when she arrived back from dropping stuff up to them in Enniscorthy.

mikemac

Tis true wild cat

A stock form and there can be hundreds of numbers on it has to be filled out manually, paper and biro

We have them on a spreadsheet but won't accept that.
If they had ROS like the Revenue I'd even enter the numbers for them

Your mother is correct. I reckon they do it like this to keep people in jobs.
Someone has to type all the numbers in and they probably have supervisors checking this and then they have managers

Mr. Incognito

Social Welfare and FAS.

Social Welfare took 9 weeks to transfer my dole from Dublin to Kerry and FAS were a joke.

I went for the Interview and the lady wanted a CV, then she asked why I was there- I told her in case any relevant jobs came in and then I was told that they do not give CV's to employers as they are not a recruitment agency and have no licence for such. I simply couldn't believe that one. If an employer approaches FAS for 50 employees they can't give over CVs.

I asked her what she did all day and she said they organise training- I said that they outsourced this and was her day taken up with interviewing people and collecting CV's when she could do sfa with them and that was pretty much her day.

In addition the condecending attitute of every single person I encountered along the way as atrocious- they are not CIVIL and they do not Serve,

Thank feck I got myself back into work and it wasn't that long- Never again- right shower the lot of them.

TheZohanS

Passport office, and this was 7 years ago no recently when they were on strike etc. Lost my application twice, once after I sent it with An Post and once after I hand delivered it. When I saw the carry on in the office I wasn't surprised, bunch of knuckle draggers.

ScumLord

God, it's impossible to pick one out, they're all so bad. I've never had a good experience with any department.

mikemac

Revenue are pretty good in fairness
Same with motortax

Governments are best at collecting money

SEPT 23 1989

Council of State

Rachiee

Medical cards worst an absolute joke

Revenue is the best they are so efficient never had a problem with them

ResearchWill

veryangryman wrote: »

CAO - Terribly arrogant crowd to deal with on the phone.

CAO are a private company.

Nhead

Dept. of Defence. Total joke.

Fran1985

trad wrote: »

Waterways Ireland for my money.

When's the last time you saw a boat on the canals, particularly in Dublin. Nice cycle path and cut the grass, that's all they're interested in. Boats cause too many problems like opening and closing the lock gates.

Its more that boat owners wont take their boats down the canals in Dublin because of the risk of vandalism. It's not too bad in the city centre cos there's always people around, but would you take your boat up by broombridge even if the waters where cleared? or out by Ballyfermot? It's not only in Dublin though, my parent's boat was hit with a rock in Limerick. Why would you bother taking something like that down the canal and risk ending up being sunk? It's a shame though. Would be great if we could do stuff like that risk free:(

Social welfare seem to be the worst though. Some of the office's are just so arrogant. My GF needed this form, that form, parents wage slip, parents bank details, her bank details. But all this info was drip fed, and by the time she brought it all in, they'd lost some of the stuff, so had to round those bits up again. She was then told she didn't need that stuff because she'd lived away from home for more than 4 years!!! 6 weeks wasted by incompetency. Do they have training courses in the public service or is it learn as you go along?

The Minister/ Dept for Health. I wrote to him some months back , telling him of my Mothers death in a Dublin Hospital, then wrote to his Dept again, 2 weeks ago, telling him of the Coroners recommendations, and am still awaiting a response.

Its heartbreaking, its frustrating, but I wont give up. its the final battle I will ever fight for my Ma.
Ive been up to my next in writing letters to people. Exhausting work when its so personal.

Newaglish

Third-level administration staff. It's universal. Bunch of lazy, knuckle-dragging, people hating morons.

scholar007

Fás
HSE West
Social Welfare
Galway City Council

later12

veryangryman wrote: »

CAO - Terribly arrogant crowd to deal with on the phone.

Most people are usually surprised to learn that the CAO is actually the product of the Universities, not of the Government.

Not that it makes much difference, they're definitely one of the least helpful - and rudest - bodies I've heaver had the displeasure to communicate with. .

The most efficient is definitely Revenue, without a shadow of a doubt. They are the reason we have some of the highest tax compliance in the world.

It wasn't always so efficient when they were 'The Revenue Commissioners', according to people who were of working age in the 1980s and 1990s, and I'm not sure when the step-up in efficiency occurred, but it appears to have been particularly noticeable from 2000 on when they became known as 'Revenue'.

If only our tax money was dealt with as efficiently once it had been successfully handed over from Revenue to the exchequer.

Nead21

Payroll dept in Department of Education and the Teaching Council (kill them, kill them with fire!!) :mad:

mikemac

Tipp North VEC
But they weren't alone, most other counties are equally as useless

Submit college grant form in July or August. Parents are farmers so needed a set of accounts and mountains of paperwork. Accountant checked it all over before we submitted it so no mistakes

If you were lucky you'd get your grant by November. Usually it was January.

Should be taken off them and given to one national body to sort out grants.
Maybe this has already been done?

Wibbs

Jake1 wrote: »

The Minister/ Dept for Health. I wrote to him some months back , telling him of my Mothers death in a Dublin Hospital, then wrote to his Dept again, 2 weeks ago, telling him of the Coroners recommendations, and am still awaiting a response.

Its heartbreaking, its frustrating, but I wont give up. its the final battle I will ever fight for my Ma.
Ive been up to my next in writing letters to people. Exhausting work when its so personal.

I've been there 11 years ago with my father and I know how terribly fcuking frustrating it can be. In the end I gave up, more for my health, sanity and that of the rest of my family. It saddens me that a decade on similar shít is going on. Saddens me but doesn't surprise. I truly hope you have better luck than I did J.


I'd agree with revenue being very good. Fair too. Having seen friends go through some utter bullshít with social welfare I'd rather grow dope and sell it than deal with that dept. My local council seems to be populated by idiot sons and daughters of idiot sons and daughters. Utter waste piled on top of more waste.

cosmicfart

An Taisce - bunch of tree hugging hippies. Also Social welfare, very inefficient and cleearly incapable of dealing with fraudsters.