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“Last week, Waterways Ireland told The Irish Times it had “not received any formal complaints regarding the fencing”.“

In fact: "More than 90 complaints have been made to Waterways Ireland about fencing erected along Dublin’s Grand Canal to prevent asylum seekers and homeless people camping in the area."

irishtimes.com/ireland/2024/08

The Irish Times · More than 90 complaints made over anti-camping fences along Dublin’s Grand CanalBy Sorcha Pollak
Simon McGarr

“Asked to clarify the discrepancy, a spokeswoman for the organisation explained that when a member of the public submits a complaint in a writing, it is considered as an “informal complaint” in the first instance, under Waterways Ireland’s Customer Complaints Procedure.”

No need to worry about Waterways Ireland’s wildlife protection commitments when they are home to so many Weasel Words.

In fact, that is not what the Waterways Ireland Customer Complaints Procedure says.

Here is that procedure, in full.

The “informal” complaints stage relates
1) Only to complaints re “services, facilities or staff” not policy.
2) Only to complaints made through an “informal complaints” form

@Tupp_ed surely if you have gone to the trouble of developing a form that people have to fill out to file a complaint it stretches the meaning of words to then describe that complaint as “Informal”.

Surely it is only “in formal” in the sense that it is contained in a form, possibly designed by someone called Al?

@Tupp_ed
I have a suspicion that this extends beyond Waterways and is a favourite tactic of several regulators and state agencies dealing with an inconvenient public.

There's a reason why those weird Freeman beliefs in just saying the right magic words to activate Law take hold.

Sometimes, there really are Magic Words.

@faduda @Tupp_ed yes “complaint” or “concern” are treated as a girl in the road.

@Tupp_ed This stuff is poisonous. We wonder why flagwaving thugs can gather public support, and a lot of it is because when institutions systematically act in bad faith, people eventually look elsewhere.

@faduda @Tupp_ed I wouldn’t go looking for justification for the flag wavers. They too are acting in bad faith. It’s not as if they actually believe that a disused paint factory in Coolock has anything to do with whatever their grievances are. They are racist, not stupid.

@robmckenna @Tupp_ed I know the flagwavers are mal fides. The point is, their message resonates more when the state is not actinf in good faith. Waterways or other agencies getting cute with wordplay is toxic and corrosive of public trust.

@faduda @Tupp_ed

I seem to recall the old ComReg or RTÉ have made this distinction about some ‘official’ complaints numbers in the past.

@helvick @Tupp_ed I've seen it used with FOI requests too, among other things.