Customer service

The Protected Disclosures Commissioner is an independent statutory office, established to send reports of work-related wrongdoing to the most appropriate body for their initial assessment and follow-up. This document sets out our Customer Service commitments and the service standards you can expect from us.

We aim to provide you with a good service and to treat you with courtesy and respect. In return, we expect that you will also teat our staff with courtesy and respect. We will respect your right to privacy and we will treat the information you provide us with carefully and we will only share for the purposes of handling your enquiry or report of wrongdoing. In return, we expect that you respect the privacy of our staff.

Contact by telephone

If you contact us by telephone, we will aim to:

Answer your call promptly
Give you our name when we answer your call
Be courteous and helpful to you
Answer your query in full
If we cannot do so immediately, we will take your details and call you back as soon as possible
Respond to all voicemail messages promptly

Written correspondence (relating to a report of wrongdoing)

If you send us a letter, email or online enquiry relating to a report of wrongdoing we will:

Acknowledge your correspondence within 7 days
Transmit your report to the appropriate prescribed person within 14 days
If we cannot transmit your report within 14 days, we will write to you and explain why
Write to you in clear language and avoid using technical or legal terms where possible

Further information on how we treat a report of wrongdoing is available on our website

( What happens if I contact the Commissioner )

Written correspondence (not relating to a report of wrongdoing)

If you send us a letter, email or online enquiry which does not concern a report of wrongdoing we will:

Acknowledge your correspondence within five working days
Ensure you receive a full reply to your written correspondence within 20 working days
If we cannot provide a full reply within 20 working days, we will write to you and explain why. We will let you know when you can expect a full reply
Give a contact name and contact details as well as a reference number (where appropriate)
Write to you in simple and clear language and avoid using technical terms

Visitors to the Office

We ask anyone who wants to visit us in person to do so by appointment. If you visit us, we will:

Meet you at the agreed time if you have an appointment
Treat you with courtesy, respect your privacy and be fair in our dealings with you
Provide appropriate facilities for meetings
Keep our public offices clean and tidy and ensure that they meet health and safety standards

If you visit us without an appointment, we will try our best to accommodate you. It may not always be possible, however, to do so. If we cannot accommodate you, we will agree with you a future date and time when we will meet with you.

Service through Irish

We will assist you if you wish to carry out your business with us through Irish

Correspondence received in Irish will be answered in Irish
We will publish key documents including our Annual Reports in Irish and English
We will ensure that information leaflets aimed at the public are available in both Irish and English
An Irish version of our website will mirror as far as practicable the English version
We will meet our other commitments under the Official Languages Act as published on our website.

Equality / Diversity / Disability

We commit to dealing with you without discrimination or prejudice
We will aim to have our services and facilities easily available and accessible to you
We will respect your right to privacy
We have appointed an Access Officer (as required under the Disability Act) to assist persons with a disability in accessing our services. Our Access Officer can be contacted by email at accessofficer@opdc.ie or by telephone at 01 639 5635.
We will consider equality and human rights in all our work.
In developing this Customer Service Charter, the Office has had regard to the considerations regarding eliminating discrimination, promoting equality and protecting human rights identified in section 42(1)(a)-(c) of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014

Complaints about customer service

If something goes wrong and you are not satisfied with our customer service, please tell us.

This refers to the issues of customer care and service in how you were dealt with by our staff.

In the first instance, please raise the matter with the person you are dealing with in the Office, so that we can respond and try to deal with the matter as early as possible
If you are not happy with the response and wish to make a formal complaint about the standard of services you received from this Office, you can write to the Director General Ms Elaine Cassidy by email to: privatesec@ombudsman.ie
We aim to acknowledge such complaints in five working days and try to provide a full reply in 20 workings days

Please note that, disagreement over the outcome of a report of wrongdoing will not of itself fall within the scope of this type of complaint. Information regarding how the Commission treats reports of wronging is set out in our Summary Procedures document.

Help us to help you

You can help us as we try to give you a high quality service please:

State how you would like to be contacted or where relevant, confirmation that you do not want to be contacted
Provide the details of the relevant wrongdoing; and whether you are of the opinion that you are at risk of serious penalisation or that there is a risk that evidence of the relevant wrongdoing will be concealed or destroyed and if so, by whom.
Do not include supporting documentation when submitting a report of wrongdoing to the Commissioner. If further information is needed by the Commissioner in order to determine the most suitable authority to follow up the report, the Commissioner will request that information from you.
Treat our staff and our service with respect. We have a Reasonable Conduct Policy . This sets out how we expect customers to behave when contacting our office and the type of behaviour which we regard as unacceptable.

Consultation and feedback

We are always interested to hear suggestions on how we can improve our service. If you would like to comment or make a suggestion, please e-mail us at info@opdc.ie

Where to get more information

You can find details of how to make a report of wrongdoing on our website. Our summary procedures for dealing with such reports are also available on our website.

Where to find us:

Our full contact details are available on the “ Contact us ” page of our website.

Email: info@opdc.ie