To ask the Minister for Infrastructure whether his Department plans to add any additional reporting services to the NI Direct Portal.

My Department provides a wide range of options on the NI Direct website for customers to report a road or streetlighting fault. The list below shows the main fault group headings that each contain a range of sub-headings to select that best matches the issue when reporting a fault online. The system automatically notifies and assigns these to the local DfI maintenance office.

The NI Direct call-centre also use the fault reporting system for submitting a fault on a customer’s behalf. The call-centre has some additional fault options that are not available on the website, such as reports of flooding, as this is best managed by them to ensure full details are provided, to reduce duplications, and to direct the these to the appropriate response agency.

Over the past number of years the system has been enhanced to provide additional reporting services, such as customer acknowledgement emails and a fault tracking function, that are designed to improve the overall customer service. However, we have no immediate plans to add further fault reporting options at this time.