Senior Mayo council official expresses concern regarding harassment of staff

A SENIOR official in Mayo County Council has said that harassment of staff is a major reason why no caller ID is displayed when they make a call.

The telephone system used by Mayo County Council has been criticised recently with a number of councillors complaining that no caller ID is displayed on calls from local authority offices.

The system was raised recently by Independent councillor Michael Kilcoyne who called for a review of the system. He complained that if he misses a call from a council employee he does not know which department it came from as the only number displayed is the main council number.

“You don’t know if it is the Chief Executive ringing to say you are in trouble or whether it’s the local engineer that will get the pothole sorted tomorrow,” he told the February meeting of Mayo County Council.

The matter was once again raised at yesterday's monthly meeting of the council where Cllr Kilcoyne asked if the system will be changed.

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In response, Director of Services Catherine McConnell told Cllr Kilcoyne that after conducting a review of the system, she said that harassment of staff was a major reason why staff's council numbers are not displayed.

“There are a couple of issues and one is we have had a high number of harassment calls where people have a direct line to specific staff members. For that reason alone there is a reluctance to have numbers associated with them passed out,” she told the meeting.

Ms McConnell also commented that there is no great record of the public having complaints about the system and it was mainly local councillors who were not happy.

She also said that staff have been instructed that if a call is not answered, they are to leave a brief message with a contact number or to leave a message on Teams to state they are returning a call.

However, Cllr Kilcoyne was not happy with the response and complained that it was not councillors who were harassing the staff.

“If someone in the council office decides to ring the councillor the number on the phone is that of Mayo County Council and you don't know who to return the call to. If we ring back the number on the phone you get the switchboard who knows nothing about it. I don't understand why something simple cannot be done...It could operate years ago,” he said.