I will read a note on privilege and housekeeping matters before we begin. Witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity either by name or in such a way as make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that may be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction I might make.

Members attending remotely are reminded of the constitutional requirement that to participate in public meetings, they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. This is due to the constitutional requirement that to participate in public meetings, members must be physically present within the confines of or the place the Parliament has chosen to sit. In this regard, I ask any members participating via Microsoft Teams to confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House complex if they wish to contribute to the meeting. I remind all those in attendance to make sure their mobile phones are switched off or on silent mode.

Today's meeting concerns discussions on Citizens Information Service National Strategy 2025-2027, Connecting Citizens. At the outset of this meeting, I thank the witnesses for attending to discuss this important publication. As a committee, we look forward to engaging with the witnesses and gaining insights into the services offered by the Citizens Information Service, CIS, both through in-person support and through the enhanced digital access. With that in mind, I welcome the following witnesses to the meeting. From the CIS, Ms Mary Watters, regional manager, north Dublin; Mr. Diarmaid O’Sullivan, regional director, south Connacht; and Mr. Martin Quinn, chair, north Munster. From the Citizens Information Board, CIB, I welcome Mr. Graham Long, chief executive; Ms Caroline Mitchell, head of division; and Ms Joan O’Connor, social policy and research executive.

I invite the witnesses to make their opening remarks.

I thank the committee for the invitation to address it today on behalf of the CIS network, to discuss the Citizens Information Service National Strategy 2025-2027, Connecting Citizens and the work of the CIS more generally. CIS is a of free, impartial, confidential information, advice and advocacy on a wide range of public services in Ireland. We help individuals understand and access their rights and entitlements. We can help members of the public with social welfare, employment, equality, housing, health, immigration, consumer and education questions. We advocate on behalf of members of the public, providing non-legal representation where necessary, for example, at social welfare appeals and Workplace Relations Commission hearings. Our vision is a society where everybody has access to free, impartial and up-do-date information, advice and advocacy to secure their rights and entitlements. Services are delivered by eight regional companies, from 89 centres across the country. Each company is run by a voluntary board of directors and is funded by the Citizens Information Board.

In 2025, CIS celebrated their 50th anniversary and it was fitting that last year we published our first national CIS strategy, Connecting Citizens. The strategy sets out the agreed vision, mission and values for the network and identifies the key priorities for service delivery and development over the next three years. A key aim of in the strategy is to enhance joint working and co-operation and to ensure greater co-ordination in the delivery of services to the public. CIS is committed to the values set out in the plan - people centered, empowering, trustworthy, independent, accessible. These values inform everything we do.

Members of the public can access CIS by calling into one our offices to speak to a trained information officer in person, or contact us by phone or by email. In 2025, CIS provided a service to 384,000 people and dealt with just under 709,000 queries. Some 70% of callers were personal callers. The delivery of services face to face is a critical feature of our service. With the increased move of public services online, CIS remains one of the few services where people can speak to someone face to face.

The most common query topics we deal with are social welfare, followed by housing, health and employment. Other common query topics include taxation, immigration, education and consumer rights. CIS not only provides information and advice to the public, we also advocate on behalf of clients, actively supporting them to access their rights and entitlements. Advocacy cases can be highly complex and can often take months and in some cases years to resolve. Our service is available to everyone but we place a particular emphasis on supporting communities of need, including older people, people who are unemployed, low-income households, those with digital literacy needs, those who live and work on the Border, people with disabilities, refugees and asylum seekers and members of the Traveller community. We also provide services through Irish. Our prison in-reach programme provides advice and support to prisoners on issues such as social welfare and housing, which supports release planning and the reintegration of prisoners into society. We also have a range of other specialist services.

CIS is committed to delivering the highest quality service possible to the public. Our staff and volunteers are well trained and work to a quality assurance system. Our customer satisfaction surveys consistently report high levels of satisfaction with our service. CIS is uniquely placed to provide feedback to Government on the effectiveness of public services. Through our social policy work, we highlight the need for change in how public services are provided. CIS has proved itself to be a flexible and responsive organisation, with the ability to develop innovative responses to emerging needs. Our digital help service, developed over recent years and now available from 34 centres nationwide, is designed to help users access online public services confidently, while building digital literacy.

As a service, we are committed to delivering maximum public value by using every euro of funding responsibly, transparently and effectively to achieve measurable results. We have robust governance structures and service delivery standards in place across the network. Despite the efficient use of resources currently available, there is still significant unmet demand for CIS. Our annual national surveys show an unmet demand level of approximately 20%. Additional resources would enable us to meet this unmet demand and increase our face-to-face service offer, our outreach to vulnerable persons and to help more people solve their problems by providing them with the information advice and support they need.

On behalf of CIB, I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today. We are very pleased to be able to join our colleagues from the CIS, and later from the Money Advice and Budgeting Services, MABS. Citizens Information has been working to keep the public informed for more than 50 years, while CIB was set up 25 years ago to provide information and to fund and support the local centres. Over the past 25 years our remit has expanded to include other organisations, like MABS, which has been operating for more than 30 years, as well as services for people with disabilities. As a State agency, CIB is supported by the Department of Social Protection.

Our vision is an Ireland where everyone has access to a trusted, independent source of information, advice and advocacy. This remit goes beyond an administrative function and represents a cornerstone of democracy and social inclusion. CIB funds and supports 22 companies to provide services to people in Ireland. Alongside nine companies in the Citizens Information network and ten companies in the MABS network, there is also the National Advocacy Service for People with Disabilities, NAS, the Sign Language Interpreting Service, SLIS, and the Register of Irish Sign Language Interpreters, RISLI. These organisations can be lifelines for people making decisions, navigating challenges and looking for clarity at crucial moments. CIB oversees the 22 companies and works with the companies in a wide range of areas, including governance, social policy, elearning, advocacy development, ICT and case management systems.

Our own core service to the public is the citizensinformation.ie website, which we run directly. Last year, the website welcomed more than 8.6 million users and recorded more than 27.4 million page views. CIB also runs the mabs.ie website. In this way, CIB plays a pivotal role in providing independent, trusted information.

The information landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, with an ever-increasing range of information sources, an increase in misinformation and the widespread adoption of AI tools. For CIB, and for the companies we fund, these pressures place an onus on us to remain agile and to preserve the empathy and human connection of our services while seeking to embrace new and improved technologies.

To take two examples in this balance, CIB soft launched our own AI tool, called AskCI, in late December. This provides a new way for users to interact with our website content. At the same time, we are working with the CIS to roll out the digital help service, which supports people at in-person clinics to engage with public services online.

The CIS launched its new national strategy late last year while the MABS companies also operate to a shared strategy. CIB's current strategy will conclude in mid-2026, and we are engaging now with all the companies and with other stakeholders to develop a new strategy that will have an emphasis on service delivery and service design. We look forward to working with the companies to continue to deliver information, advice and advocacy that have positive impacts on people’s lives.

I now invite members to contribute and remind those participating remotely to use the raise hand feature and cancel it when they have spoken.

I thank the Chair and the witnesses for coming in today. I know the work their organisations do. It is very important work and helps out the most vulnerable people. I commend the 180 volunteers. It is brilliant to see. My county is Meath. How many centres are there in County Meath?

There is a huge challenge in the reliance on scheme workers and placements are frequently short term. It does not make sense that we are training people up to go into these jobs and they are gone out of them within a year. We can see that not just with the CIS but across the board where CE workers are moved on within 12 months. I would like to see the term increase to between three to five years.

Do the witnesses see much of an increase in people coming into their offices in recent months given the cost of living and electricity and gas prices? The CIS saves the State a lot of money by filling out forms for people for appeals for social welfare and housing or whatever else. I know that because people come into my office also. I say "well done" to the witnesses. I thank them for all they do for the most vulnerable in the country.

I will answer the Deputy's last point first, about the cost of living. We certainly have seen an increase in the number of clients coming through our doors who are struggling with the cost of living. We work with those clients to ensure they are availing of all of the benefits and supports that are available through the social welfare system and housing supports. We frequently undertake a benefit check with people to make sure they are accessing all of the available supports.

The important thing is that people become aware of what they are entitled to, and then in certain situations we support them in making those applications. In situations where people have been refused or denied a payment, we can support them to appeal decisions. Sometimes, we take cases to the social welfare appeals office if necessary. Our main focus is on ensuring that people get access to those rights and entitlements that they need to support them in their lives and to meet the cost of living.

In terms of some of the challenges that people are facing, housing is certainly a big challenge that we are seeing at the moment. The cost of rental accommodation is a big challenge for a lot of people. The current housing assistance payment, HAP, limits that are in place are not sufficient in certain circumstances, and can lead to situations where members of the public have to top up their rents at the expense of meeting other costs such as food and heating, etc. That is a real challenge that we are seeing coming through our doors at the moment.

We also provide services to a lot of people with disabilities. It is perhaps one group in society that is particularly challenged at the moment in terms of meeting the costs of everyday life. We provide support to them to ensure they have the necessary supports. That might be a combination of a social welfare payment or secondary benefits such as housing supports. Some people are also looking to try to see if they can balance that, maybe by undertaking some amount of paid work as well. That is particularly complicated and difficult to navigate for people to ensure they can maximise their income. That is something we support those clients with at the moment.

I will move to the Deputy's second question on scheme workers. We are heavily reliant on scheme workers across the country. We have a core paid staff and they are supported by community employment workers, by Tús workers and also by volunteers, as referred to by the Deputy. The challenge we find is that when many of these people come onto community employment schemes, for example, and are trained up by our services, it takes a lot of time and investment to ensure they have the skills necessary to deliver a quality service to the public. That can take anywhere between three and six months in some situations. For a certain number of our community employment workers, that placement can come to an end after a year. Not only does the service lose a lot of time that it has invested into those workers, but the individuals themselves do not get the opportunity to further develop those skills which, in turn, would provide them with the experience that might facilitate them to progress to paid work at a later stage. If it were possible to extend placements to somewhere between three to five years, that would be a huge benefit to our service in terms of sustainability. It would be a huge benefit to the individuals in question as well, in terms of building up their skills and abilities.

Just in relation to the Deputy's query at the beginning about County Meath, there are three centres in the county, in Navan, Trim and Ashbourne. While my colleague, Diarmaid, and I represent north Dublin and south Connacht, my colleague who looks after north Leinster, which includes Meath, is in the Gallery.

In terms of some of the queries that come in from the Deputy's constituency, the cases illustrate the breadth and depth of what we do. In terms of housing, we took a case for somebody in relation to medical priority. The person was living in private rented accommodation and had very significant medical needs and there was a very poor standard of living within the private rented accommodation. The service assisted them to update their application to the council. With the assistance of the CIS, and some of our other partners, including Age-Friendly Ireland, the person received keys to their new house just before Christmas 2025.

Diarmaid has mentioned the benefit checks that we do. Another example is a gentleman in his 80s who came into one of the offices in Deputy Guirke's constituency with a query about a passport. It was discovered that his wife had passed away and he was not aware he was entitled to the living alone allowance because he had been on the pension. The service assisted him with the living alone allowance and also with the household benefits package. He received significant back money. One of the quotes from him, like other customers, is that there were things he did not know he was entitled to that he found out about when he came to the CIS. His life has been improved by the contact with the service.

On the point about CE workers, we have 140 paid staff. It is quite a challenge to support all of our CE placements and volunteers with such a limited number of staff.

I thank the witnesses very much. I have two more quick questions.

I am sorry but Deputy Guirke does not have the time.

Is the time up? Okay.

Deputy Guirke can come back in again. I call Deputy Aird.

I would like to be associated with the thanks to the witnesses for being here today. I thank them for the invaluable service they give to communities in County Laois. I sometimes think that we are nearly working in parallel. I am giving advice and they are giving advice but the problem I get the whole time is that they believe citizens information before they believe me. I thank the witnesses for everything that they do. I have a few questions for them. How will the new CIS national strategy for 2025 to 2027 measurably improve accessibility and awareness of information services for citizens, particularly citizens in rural and disadvantaged areas?

A key focus of our three-year strategy is the delivery of a face-to-face service. Citizens information services have always been very committed to providing services locally in communities. My colleague, Mary, has referred to the limited staffing resources that we have at the moment. That can pose a challenge, but we believe that people should be able to access information on their rights and entitlements at a local level, and not have to travel large distances to a large city or town in order to do that. We are certainly committed to that.

What specific plans are in place to ensure those without digital access or skills are not excluded?

One of the main objectives of the plan is to continue to roll out our digital help service, which was developed in recent years. It is currently available in 34 centres, and we intend to expand it even further. The service provides support to people who might not have the digital skills to interact with the State online, so it provides them with support to access mygov.ie, Revenue, and so on. That is crucial in the current environment where the vast majority of public services are primarily delivered through digital platforms, and having that support is really crucial. We are confident that it will help individuals.

I thank Mr. O'Sullivan very much. How will the 2025-27 strategy strengthen co-ordination between the Citizens Information Board and other State and community services to provide a seamless support for citizens?

Currently, we work very closely with the Citizens Information Board and other service providers to ensure that people get access to the information they actually need. We frequently refer clients who come through our doors to other specialist services. Many people visit the citizens information website, which is provided by the Citizens Information Board. That is the channel through which people end up coming through our doors where people need additional advice and support.

We are keen to work in increased co-operation with CIB, other stakeholders and service providers and, indeed, the eight citizens information companies nationwide.

What indicators will the CIS use to track the effectiveness of the 2025-27 strategy and how will it report progress publicly to maintain accountability?

Obviously, one of the main metrics is the number of people we support - the number of people who are coming through our doors to avail of a service, and can avail of a service face-to-face in particular, but also the number of queries that are undertaken and the number of advocacy cases.

I mentioned advocacy in our opening statement. That is a really important element of our service in that it means we provide hands-on support to people to avail of services and to get the services, and the social welfare entitlements, in particular, that they are entitled to. The amount of advocacy work that we undertake is an indicator.

The rolling out of the digital help service that I referred to will be a key metric in terms of determining success.

How have community organisations, local authorities and service users been engaged in implementing the strategy to ensure it meets the real needs of people who are going in through the CIS's door?

In terms of our co-operation, I will mention that we deliver a number of joint services. Specifically, I will mention our work with the Irish Prison Service where we do in-reach into the prisons. This particular collaborative project has seen great results for people where there are huge challenges in accessing their rights and entitlements.

In terms of the indicators of our service, we look at the impact as well. Within our service, it is more than just about numbers; it is about the individuals behind those numbers and the impact that our service has on those people.

In terms of working with the local authorities, etc., we have engaged with the local councils and met with them to discuss how we can improve our services and work in collaboration and co-operation with them. We also are looking at some joint work with the likes of the community welfare officers in Wicklow, etc.

When Ms Watters says the CIS is working with the county councils, the big area it would be working with is housing.

Correct.

The CIS is not involved in planning, roads or anything like that. It is housing. Down through the years, I spent a lot of time on a local authority. Filling in a housing application form at present is an onerous task. It is not made easy for people. If anything, it is more difficult. There are two or three places where you go. There are taxation certificates to be got, for example. You have to do it online. That is where the assistance would come in because most of the people would not be able to do it online themselves.

A big area of our work is in assisting people by explaining what the requirements are and then helping them to fill out the forms. Some of our biggest challenges in relation to housing with the local authorities are particularly in relation to medical priority, and I mentioned that earlier. We assist people with applying for medical priority where they have specific circumstances. We have also assisted people where there have been challenges because the council has written to say that they have not applied or they are off the list, etc. We have helped people to appeal and get their places on the list. I agree absolutely with the Deputy that the forms are challenging, particularly for people who may have literacy difficulties or language difficulties.

I would also make the point that my colleague has referenced the number of clients that we deal with every year. The challenges in relation to people's mental health have increased very much over the years and it can be particularly challenging for people who find themselves in difficult housing situations. That is an awful lot of our work.

Is housing the big issue with the CIS?

I would say housing is one of our big issues.

What are the others?

I would mention social welfare issues, such as people living with disabilities and people accessing supplementary welfare allowances. All of our work is dynamic. When something happens, for example, the floods or the Ukraine crisis, we respond to each and every event that happens. Our figures would show that social welfare is one of our big issues.

What about the housing threshold? If you are €10 or even €5 above the threshold and you appeal, 99% of the time your appeal does not stand up.

There are big challenges around the housing thresholds. There are big challenges around HAP limits, people paying top-ups on HAP, people being afraid to raise-----

What would Ms Watters do if she was Minister in the morning? That is my huge one.

I am afraid Ms Watters is out of time. Maybe that is a good thing. I call Senator Rabbitte.

I thank the witnesses for their presentations and their opening remarks. I acknowledge the people who are here with them in the Gallery.

Ms Watters started to answer on the in-reach service into prisons and I will go from there. Anybody who wants to do so can answer the question in relation to the in-reach service. Do they provide the in-reach service to all the prisons or is it easier to tell me which ones they do not provide it to?

We do in-reach into seven prisons.

Could Ms Watters list them?

Probably not, but I will start with some of them. We provide it at the Midlands Prison, Arbour Hill and Longford. I will come back to the Senator with a full list of the seven prisons. Last year, across those prisons we supported 754 individuals to access their rights and entitlements. One specific case that comes to mind is in relation to housing where a prison was on the housing list. He had a wife and a number of children but, because he was the primary applicant, they would not process the application for his wife and children. They ended up living in emergency accommodation and he could not speak to the council in question because he was incarcerated. The CIS in north Dublin represented him, spoke to the council, spoke to the wife, submitted the application in his wife's name and they receive local authority housing. I have been handed the full list of prisons, as follows: Portlaoise; Midlands Prison; Cork, in Dillon's Cross; Cloverhill; Castlerea; Arbour Hill; Mountjoy; Limerick; and Wheatfield.

That is good to know. When I visited Limerick Prison as part of the Oireachtas justice committee, we heard a really sad story about a lady who was in the female section of the prison. Her primary support was her mum. Her mum died suddenly. Unfortunately, because she was not at home and she did not have the primary care, her children were taken into care at 14 and 16 years of age, respectively. Also because she was not at home, she was not there to liaise with the council and she lost her house. When she came out, she was homeless and her children were in care. Unfortunate stories like that really exist. I welcome the fact that the CIS goes into prisons because sometimes a lot of our prisoners are there for a short period of time. I thank Ms Watters on that.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Long spoke about the SLIS and the RISLI. How is the funding in relation to Irish sign language interpreting services going?

The SLIS and the RISLI are both funded directly by the CIB. At present, the SLIS has well over €1 million in funding covering its core running operation as well as €400,000 for a voucher scheme for members of the deaf community.

Does that meet what is required in relation to court services - the interpretation that would be required to support people who need to do their advocacy?

There is a concern at present. It is being addressed to some extent through the process of the human rights strategy around the number of interpreters in the country who are available to meet the needs of the deaf community. That strategy and a subgroup within that strategy are looking at methods by which the number of interpreters can be increased. It is quite challenging because it is a relatively small pool and there is a relatively small number of educational channels for people who want to become interpreters. As I understand it, that is a key constraint at present in the sign language community.

As part of the key constraints, was there an issue in the past 18 months where there was a fear in relation to the funding for the Irish sign language interpreters that they felt their existence was at risk?

Not that I am aware of. In February 2024, there was some interest in the voucher scheme, particularly around a pausing of the voucher scheme while it was procured. However, we were able to overcome that process and the voucher scheme continued throughout.

That is welcome to hear.

Deputy Guirke asked Ms Watters to name the CISs in his constituency. Deputy Roche and I are from the same constituency, Galway East, but I refer to County Galway as a whole. Do we have many CISs across our constituency?

I will refer the Senator Rabbitte to Mr. O'Sullivan, who is the regional manager for Galway.

In south Connacht, we have 11 centres. In County Galway, we have a centre in Galway city, one in Tuam, one in Ros Muc and one in Clifden. We provide some outreach services to Loughrea and Ballinasloe also. There is a citizens information centre in Athlone also, close by, and Roscommon, which would deal with some of north County Galway as well.

Last year when Storm Éowyn happened, it was not only Galway that was impacted.

It was the same with the floods just recently. Does the CIS have a risk register of vulnerable clients? When the witnesses come into contact with vulnerable clients who may not have been on any register, do they connect with the HSE, the ESB or any other body to put those clients on registers to ensure that if they have a disability or need, they will be supported during exceptional weather conditions?

We do not have a risk register as such for those clients but we respond to the needs of those who come through our doors. We link in closely with the local authorities and the various forums at local authority level. When adverse weather events occur, there is a co-ordinated community response. We link in through the forums.

When the CIS first meets someone who is at risk, is there a mechanism in place? Even if there is not a severe weather event, is there a way of passing on the details of a person, with their consent, to have them identified? This is to ensure we can provide services to vulnerable individuals when we have severe weather events.

There is no formal mechanism as such at this point, but we do ensure, where appropriate, that we refer clients to other specialist services and that they get access to as much support as possible. My colleague Ms Watters might want to come in on that.

On vulnerable people, the utility companies and the HSE have lists of those who are vulnerable in severe weather events and so on. During Storm Éowyn, in particular, we worked with the Irish Red Cross, which was making visits to vulnerable people. It referred people to us whom we then assisted through the humanitarian assistance scheme programmes. Particularly in some counties in the west, there were people who were not aware that they were entitled to have hotel accommodation paid for when they were out of electricity. On foot of referral to us from other agencies, we were able to assist a particularly vulnerable elderly couple. As Mr. O’Sullivan has said, our service is based on being independent and on people coming to us. We do not hold details. The holding of a register will be for other bodies, but we work very closely with them.

I thank our guests for attending and commend them on the work they do. It is absolutely incredible. I have no questions about their accountability or ability to do their work. The customer satisfaction survey really speaks volumes. I am based in Laois and am very familiar with the services there, particularly the one in Portlaoise, and the constraints they are under. I am familiar with exactly what they highlighted in their opening statement about reduced opening hours, volunteers and the turnover of staff.

I have a couple of questions that I want our guests to expand on so I can understand a little more. Reference has been made to a survey and the various categories people are put into. One is “distressed”. I cannot find the information now. There were quite a few in the category. What comes under it? It is different from categories related to mental health and everything else.

The category of “distressed” would include people under a lot of pressure due to the circumstances they find themselves in. We spoke earlier about cost-of-living challenges. Clients we work with may face challenges in having sufficient money to pay the bills and put food on the table, and these can lead to a lot of stress and distress. The fact that people can come in and speak to somebody face to face and share their problems is an important dimension of our service.

So, much of what is included in the category of “distressed” relates to the cost of living. It could fall under mental health. Overall, a lot of work is being done regarding the cost of living, energy arrears and the number of people in energy poverty. I could not believe there were over 300,000 in energy arrears when I saw the figure. The service is crying out for additional resources. What could be done with additional resources is incredible.

Deputy Aird asked what the witnesses' ask of the Minister is, but I see on the last page of the submission that the CIS has five requests. I hope the committee can work together on this and send the transcript of this meeting to the relevant people. Maybe more senior people here will know the best thing to do. We should be pushing as a committee for an increase in resources.

My next question is on the 73,000 callers who are not dealt with when they present. This number is going to continue to grow. Could our guests state the impact if demand keeps growing at the current level, resulting in so many unanswered calls?

On unmet demand, I should point out that the figure of 73,000 is an extrapolation based on an annual survey we carry out for a two-week period each year. However, we are confident it is realistic. It pertains to people who come to our doors, maybe for a drop-in session, only to find there is simply not the capacity for an information officer to see them. There simply are not enough staff. Others might call to our centres outside of drop-in hours. It is not to say that some of these people do not receive a service at a later point, but there is not capacity in the service to meet the demand at the first point of contact. It is a matter of the number of staff we have on the ground. We have 140 full-time-equivalent information officers right across the country and 89 centres, so that equates to about 1.5 information officers per centre, averaged out across the country. It is very challenging to continue to meet the needs of all the individuals who need our support.

With regard to the turnover of staff, if the many CE schemes last only one year and all the training has to be repeated each year, it makes absolutely no sense. I do not know if we can consider expanding the period to three or five years. This would obviously help in many ways. It would reduce the list in turn. There are many additional resources that are just-----

Absolutely. Volunteers and CE workers play a fairly fundamental role in supporting the paid staff and delivering services, but nonetheless it is very challenging to meet the need. We only see the need growing over future years. Obviously, the population is growing.

Any time there is a crisis - for example, in Laois there was a crisis when Fastway workers were let go - CIS staff are absolutely outstanding and many volunteers give of their own time to help the affected individuals.

On unmet demand, as Mr. O’Sullivan has said, we estimated that 73,000 people who came seeking our service could not see us last year. In addition to addressing that, and to go back to our strategy, we would like to be able to reach out to vulnerable groups or individuals. When we do talks for senior citizen groups, new communities and minority communities, they often say, “I did not know that." One key thing we would like to do if we had more resources would be to actively engage with people who may not be aware of some of their entitlements or rights. That is crucial in some of the communities we work in, where people are facing challenges and actually do not know where to go. There is a fear about raising issues with Departments or landlords because people believe it might affect them, even though it may not. Our organisation, as a trusted information provider and source of support, is very important. The figure for unmet demand is greater than the number of people who do not get through our doors.

On what the Senator was saying about scheme workers, and as raised already by Deputy Guirke, from our point of view a critical part of what needs to be addressed is the fact that staff are trained into the job and then have to go. We have to ensure that everything can be done to extend their terms. That will not take from the fact that we do need additional resources in the form of paid staff. I am not taking from that in any way because that is a very important part of the service. CE and Tús scheme workers play an integral role in the service.

Often they are the front-facing people the customer will meet. It is important from our perspective that we put across the need for the extension of it, if at all possible.

I thank the witnesses so much for coming. They do excellent and important work in communities across Ireland and I commend them, their teams and everyone who volunteers and works in the centres. I note in the report that one of the objectives is to enhance in-person delivery. I would like to get a sense of what that means and how that translates into centres, including how many centres the service has, whether it has additional ones and the number of centres available to people. There is also a question of staffing and funding. Will the witnesses give me a sense of the budget that has been allocated for staffing over the last five years in the centres? I am conscious the service is reliant on the CE scheme so perhaps the people from that could be excluded to focus on the information officers.

We have 89 centres right across the country and in every county. As I mentioned, we have 140 whole-time equivalent information officers supported by community employment workers and volunteers. On the in-person face-to-face service people receive, we mentioned earlier there is a move of public services online and that is presenting a challenge for certain sectors of society who may not have the digital skills and literacy to enable them to interact with the State in that way. Our digital help service is a very important innovation on our part to meet that need. More fundamentally in terms of a face-to-face service, the ability of somebody to come into an office, sit down and speak to an information officer and get a comprehensive and holistic service is really important. People can certainly access information - maybe straightforward information - online, etc., but it is about being able to talk through the options that are available and also the consequences of taking particular courses of action. I referred earlier to people on social welfare payments considering taking up part-time employment. That can have real implications for retaining some or all of that entitlement, so these are important decisions in people's lives. It can impact on their eligibility for medical cards, social housing supports, etc., so it is important people can talk to an individual, discuss their options and make informed decisions. That is a fundamental part.

I also mentioned earlier that our services are community-based. They have always been and it is really important that link remains so that people can avail of the service locally in their community. Obviously, we have finite resources. We cannot have a citizens information in every village in Ireland. However, the boards of the eight companies take very seriously their responsibility to deliver services at a local level and have to take strategic decisions to see how they can use those resources most effectively and most efficiently.

That totally makes sense. I will raise a constituency issue with the witnesses if they do not mind. In 2022 the citizens information centre in Rathmines centre was closed when a tenancy agreement came to an end. That was merged with Meath Street and then reopened on Usher Street in 2024. There is still a small centre in my constituency in the Carmelite Community Centre but it is only open four hours a week. That is all the in-person services for the 125,000 people of the constituency. There is one just over the border of the constituency in Kimmage that is more available. I have invited in a volunteer who was in the Rathmines centre doing a lot of good work. She would tell the witnesses such wonderful stories about a diverse community, especially in Rathmine, where there are about 14,000 people, and the really important role that service played for so many people dealing with social welfare issues, housing issues and that kind of thing. I have been in contact with the Dublin south CIS and it has said it has no plans to explore any other premises in Rathmines. I struggle with the question of reducing the number of centres and not having sufficient hours for in-person engagement with citizens, especially older or vulnerable ones, in a constituency. I would like to hear from the witnesses what could be done to remedy that situation and in particular what sort of funding I should be asking the Minister for Social Protection for to ensure these things do not happen.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Teachta as an gceist. Rathmines closed, as he rightly said, because the building was sold. As for increasing the number of hours, if we had more staff, I am sure my colleague from Dublin south who is in the Gallery would be delighted to increase the number of hours in the Carmelite centre. I look after north Dublin. Across Dublin, people are quite well able to move. We have centres just across the Liffey on James Joyce Street and also on Green Street. We also offer people, if they have difficulty getting to a centre, the option to link in remotely so we can do video calls with them and so on. That is available if anyone in Rathmines is unable to get to the new centre on Usher Street. Usher Street is a very modern centre that is well staffed and has good opening hours. However, we would love to increase our opening hours. The Deputy asked about staffing and how we would increase our face-to-face service. In all our centres across the country there are people we cannot see. When a centre is open, be it on Usher Street or James Joyce Street, I could have two information officers on. We give about 20 to 30 minutes per person so that in three hours each of them can see about six to nine people, but we could have 30 people at the door when we open. If there was one thing members could do for us, it would be to ask for us to get more staff.

With the centres there are lots of challenges about premises. We have to look at health and safety, appropriate accommodation and so on. However, there are something like 17 centres across Dublin that people can access. We will come back specifically about the opening hours. People can check every week. We update them on citizensinformation.ie. We are built on voluntarism. The contribution of volunteers is very much appreciated and acknowledged, especially in the current environment. We have 180 and we are recruiting more.

The witnesses are most welcome. Having listened to the contributions since I joined the meeting, I am a hell of a lot more aware of what it is that they do. I imagine, based on what Ms Watters just said, that there will be days when the service is just firefighting. Going back to what Mr. Quinn mentioned earlier, when you have somebody of value, be they from FÁS, Tús, the RSS or whatever scheme and they are providing a very essential service or support, it should not be a case of the witnesses begging for that person to be kept. That is where the rule changes need to apply. Given the mention of staff shortages, where somebody has been identified as valuable to the service and they are providing a critical support or intervention, the nonsense should be taken out of the reasons they cannot be kept. The criteria are a little too rigid and that is something we should all address going forward. I read with interest the testimonials or feedback on page 4 from the customers. It is nice to get that kind of feedback. What about the 25% who find it hard to get access to the services? That is a fair question to ask.

Again, we would love to be able to serve that 20% and, as Mr. O'Sullivan said, sometimes they will come in to us again. On the point about CE, there are a wide range of schemes. The Deputy mentioned CE, Tús and the RSS. There is also jobs initiative and the work placement experience programme, which we have a number of people on. The challenge when people come to the end of those programmes - I mentioned earlier the skill level they have gained - is that they are back to the beginning again. None of our offices could open without those schemes and without volunteers.

We have nobody to sit at our front desk. Our information officers are back-of-house, so to speak, and this is very important. We simply could not survive without them. We would welcome any support on this.

In terms of customer testimonials, for the 20% and the people in the vulnerable groups we have not been able to reach, it is important to point out that sometimes people do not appear to need the citizens information service but then something happens, such a bereavement, a sudden loss of income or an illness, and it is to these people, who do not know where to turn, that we would like to be able to promote the accessibility of our offices and the fact that the service is for everybody. Sometimes people see the citizens information service as only being for particular groups of people but it is a universal service. We hope those people have been able to receive the help they need. If we had more staff, we could do more.

I want to make a point on volunteers. As we know, the service was built on volunteers and it remains that way. We should not forget that the boards are also made up of volunteers. We have eight companies with approximately eight directors on each board. We are speaking about another 64 people who are all volunteers. It is important not to forget this aspect of it. We who are part of the service are all volunteers as well. The voluntary aspect of citizens information is crucial to the service but also crucial are the extra staff resources.

I commend Mr. Quinn on that. If we took the voluntary effort out of what goes on in Ireland, there would be very little left in many ways, it has to be said. I am reminded that generally people are quite clumsy or challenged when they have to visit the citizens information service. It may be the first time they have reached out and, in many respects, the last time they will reach out. I can only imagine the level of empathy the staff would have to have to be able to manage a person pleading for support, whether that be for social welfare payments or housing. Any of these is a challenge for somebody who is not managing. I suppose the last thing they want to hear is that there is nothing there for them. Earlier one of my colleagues asked what the witnesses would do if they were the Minister. If there was one ask they had for the Minister to strengthen the service, what would it be? I know they will say "money", but what is the most critical thing they would reach out for?

It is probably what Mr. O'Sullivan laid out in our opening statement. It is more staff. With more we could do more. What does this "more" look like? It is more support for people. In the case of people who come in to us, sáite i gcrobh an éadóchais, stuck in despair, we give them hope, options and guidance. With more staff we could do more of this. We would also say there are other things, such as access to language supports, clarity on eligibility for schemes, signposting schemes for people with disabilities, signposting when older people become eligible for schemes such as the living alone allowance and the household benefits package and challenges with the eligibility criteria for the fuel allowance. Fundamentally, the citizens information service in my region of north Dublin, as is the case for all my colleagues, has an average of 1.5 paid staff for each office. To reference the request of Deputy Hayes for additional hours, this does not allow us to do any more. It means that in every office throughout the country, and particularly in our busier areas, there are people every day saying they cannot get a service. We had a recent customer service survey, and somebody who took the time to fill it out said it had taken them 30 years to ask for help, and for the first time in 30 years they thought they would sleep that night. That probably says it all.

I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee. I have a few questions. The website is in plain English and easy to understand, follow and navigate. It is excellent and I thank the witnesses for this service they provide. They might not be able to provide today, but they might be able to send in afterwards, the number of people on the WorkAbility scheme, CE schemes, Tús schemes and the RSS. Mr. O'Sullivan mentioned there are roughly 1.5 staff per centre so we can find out roughly how many paid staff there are. The issue of unmet demand has come up an awful lot today. The witnesses are meeting the committee to seek more resources. What is the annual budget? Has it increased in recent years?

The overall annual budget for the Citizens Information Board is €69.432 million for this year. This is part of the Department of Social Protection's allocation. Of this, the grants to the citizens information service are expected to be €19.875 million. That is an increase over 2023 of 14.7%. We work closely with the Department of Social Protection on the grant process. We go through the same process as other public bodies with regard to the existing level of service and putting forward a business case for the following year.

Is that through a service level agreement?

The Citizens Information Board has a service level agreement with the citizens information service and it has an oversight agreement and a performance delivery agreement with the Department. This has been increasing. We have been engaging fruitfully with the Department and we feel there is a positive trend. We also have some premises funding this year, which is very welcome. We are pursuing premises in a couple of different locations where we have issues with notices to quit or health and safety matters. In terms of the breakdown of how it is used, which did come up earlier, across all of our companies roughly 78% of the grants provided is for staff salaries and about 9% is for rent. This means 87% goes on fixed costs of running the companies we fund. That may give the Cathaoirleach some sense of how they are structured.

With regard to awareness campaigns for the services provided and encouraging volunteers such as Mr. Quinn into the service, as I know it is very volunteer led, have campaigns been done of late to encourage people to become citizen information officers or volunteers in the service?

We did a local radio campaign in December 2024, supported by the Department, to promote the recruitment of volunteers across the citizens information service. On two occasions late last year, the Citizens Information Board ran campaigns rooted on our website citizensinformation.ie looking to bring back awareness of the brand and particular parts of services, such as the phone service, which is a critical component of moving from the website to in-person services through it.

As Mr. Long said, the Citizens Information Board facilitated a campaign for volunteers. A number of the companies are recruiting volunteers and taking them on. My company is looking to take on ten volunteers. A critical piece is having the paid staff to support them. We have a very robust volunteer strategy and a volunteer induction and training programme but we have to have the paid staff. With our low number of paid staff and the figures we are dealing with, when we look at our advocacy cases, a single advocacy case could take 48 hours with 181 actions. There is an awful lot of work for staff who are already doing a drop-in service. We ask volunteers to do seven hours a week. This is something we need for consistency but it can be a challenge. The Cathaoirleach referenced the number of people on schemes. We have 173 people on schemes, which are predominantly community employment schemes with a small number on the Tús jobs initiative, the work placement experience programme and the RSS.

To add to what Ms Watters has said on volunteers, we lost a lot of them during Covid so we were starting with a new plate.

It was really about going into it and trying to recruit volunteers to replace those who had departed from the service. The voluntary aspect is a cornerstone of the Citizens Information Service. From our perspective, getting the volunteers in is one step, but training them is another. As Ms Watters said, we cannot just bring in the volunteers and expect them to do whatever they have to without being adequately trained, and that takes a fair bit of work. It means that paid staff have to be resourced to do that.

I thank Mr. Quinn. I see in the briefing notes that there was the soft launch of the CIB AI tool, AskCI. How is that going and how can we access it?

It is available at askcitizensinformation.ie or from the main menu on the website. We soft launched it very deliberately so that we could check its accuracy over time with growing numbers, etc. It seems to be going very well. We are running a daily test check on a sample of questions and answers produced by AskCI. It is limited to our website, so that is the extent of its knowledge base. We have had about 5,200 questions asked of it since 23 December 2025.

And the accuracy?

It seems to be very high, because it is very high in terms of where it is taking its information from. With other AI tools, we found that they would take some information from the Citizens Information Service, gov.ie and other sources, a couple of which would be less well regarded. We were getting a mix of sources coming in from that, whereas when we are using our own, we are finding the accuracy is very good.

I thank Mr. Long very much. We have only four minutes left. I am going to give the time to Deputy Wall.

I am sorry for being late. I was in the Chamber earlier debating legislation on remote work.

I am sure every member has contributed regarding the website. I am going to put on the record that, after being in public service for 25 years, it is the number one tool that I use day in and day out. I hope the Government is paying big time for it, because without it, every public representative in the country would struggle. It is the best service for any public representative that I know of out there.

I have a few questions. We worked very closely in our constituency office in Athy with the local citizens information centre. Unfortunately, it is not there any more. We had a very collaborative approach. It would refer cases to us and vice versa. The witnesses mentioned that there had been an increase in phone calls, but in-person contact with people is important. How is that affecting the branch network? What is the impact of the reduced number of branches around the country? It is a huge issue for many people whom I deal with day in and day out.

I read about appeals in the introduction. I think there was a reference to a person who said they were going to give up but the CIS actually helped them to go ahead with the appeal. A huge issue for many people and this committee is to make it more doable for people to negotiate and complete appeals. Was it found that there was a huge increase in appeals and the service was helping many people?

Is AI a threat to factual information? It is for me, and I see it as such. It is and can be a great tool. My questions concern in-person contact, the website and what the CIS is doing to negate any misinformation that may be put out there through AI?

To answer the Deputy's first question in relation to face-to-face services, we have seen an increase in the number of face-to-face clients over the last number of years. Currently, about 70% of our clients are seen face to face, and that is the result of a very deliberate decision on the part of the service to prioritise face-to-face service delivery over phone or email engagement. We spoke earlier about the fact that more public services were available online and digitally, so we remain one of the few places where people can speak to an individual and talk through their problems. It has been a very deliberate strategic decision on our part to prioritise face-to-face service delivery.

To jump to the Deputy's comment in relation to AI, I think that is going to be a challenge for us in future. We are a trusted source of information. People come to us in the knowledge that we are going to refer to the facts, the primary legislation, the regulations, etc., and can provide them with comprehensive information in that respect. That will increase the importance of citizens information services in the years ahead, and I think this is really critical.

There is quite a bit in the discussion on AI and misinformation. AI is a very powerful misinformation tool and a very powerful information tool as well. We have been working with a number of other organisations and we had an event at the end of last year with Commissioner McGrath in relation to trusted sources of information. Looking at that as being a key counterpoint to misinformation, we have been providing a trusted source of information for 50 years in the case of the CIS and 25 in the case of the CIB. It is hard to modernise that a little bit, because we do see that people are using AI tools. We were at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence last month and we referred to a fall in the number of users of our website. They are not leaving a search engine to come to our website because they are getting the answer in an overview. People are using AI tools and getting responses that are or seem plausible, one or the other. We are very interested in how we can help people to access a similar type of process but just using our content and website, which is where AskCI comes in. It takes chat technology and just limits its sources to our website itself and no other sources.

I thank Mr. Long very much. Unfortunately, we are out of time. I thank all of our witnesses, particularly those from the Citizens Information Service: Mr. O'Sullivan, Mr. Quinn and Ms Watters. I thank everyone in the Public Gallery who attended as well. They are departing now. The witnesses from the CIB are going to stay with us for the second session with the Money Advice and Budgeting Service, MABS. I thank all of the witnesses for participating this morning. They certainly provided us with invaluable information to progress our deliberations.

We will now suspend to facilitate the change of witnesses.