There was an increase of almost a third in the number of complaints to the Ombudsman about Government departments and agencies last year.
There were 3,727 valid complaints, an increase of 30%, and 45% of these were about the Civil Service.
In her report, Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly said: 'Given that 2009 was itself a record year, the surge in the complaint numbers made in 2010 was both exceptional and challenging.'
This was the highest number of complaints made to the Office of the Ombudsman in over ten years.
Most of the civil service complaints related to the Department of Social Protection and concerned unemployment and other benefits. There were 1,181 complaints about this department in 2010, a rise of 53% on the previous year.
Publishing her annual report today, the Ombudsman said she was not surprised about the big jump in complaints about the Department of Social Protection given the economic situation.
She said just because more people were engaging with public bodies should not lead to lower standards or to people being unfairly treated.
The second largest category of complaints related to the HSE, a total of 1,088 complaints were received - an increase of 44% on 2009.
979 complaints were received about local authorities, a rise of 14% on the previous year.
There were 58 complaints about An Post, up 25% on 2009, and accounting for 1.5% of all complaints received by the Ombudsman's Office.
