Kildare mum on housing list for 10 years helped get home by Ombudsman

A Co Kildare mum made one of the 3,500 complaints about public bodies to the Ombudsman last year.

The most gripes were about the civil service, with 1,397 complaints or 38%, followed by local authorities and the HSE.

Housing has also become a significant issue for the Ombudsman's Office.

In one case, the Ombudsman investigated the case of a Co Kildare woman with two children who was on Kildare County Council's social housing waiting list for ten years.

After raising the case with the Council, the family were allocated a home through a voluntary housing association.

In his annual report for 2015, Ombudsman Peter Tyndall noted the low level of complaints his office receives about hospitals - because of the possible consequences for their treatment or because they believed it would not make a difference.

He has made 36 recommendations to improve the hospital complaints system for patients but while the HSE accepted these, Mr Tyndall has expressed concerns about the delay in acting on them.

"In most cases the delivery of public services goes well. However, if people don't complain when things go wrong then people will experience the same problems over and over again," Mr Tyndall said in a statement.

"When people complain it gives service providers an opportunity to put things right and to stop the same mistakes happening again."

Private nursing homes came under the Ombudsman's jurisdiction for the first time last year but he said so far the number of complaints has been low.

Among the other complaints dealt with by the Office concerned the State Examination Commission, welfare payments by the Department of Social Protection and dog fines issued by county councils.