A SOCIAL DEMOCRATS TD has called for the government to consider setting up a State-run death notice website after RIP.ie announced its plan to begin charging for funeral listings.

Wicklow TD Jennifer Whitmore has said that the public should have access to service that provides details of funerals that is centralised, easy to use, and free.
RIP.ie, one of Ireland’s most-visited websites, has been the country’s leading death notice platform for years but received backlash last month when it announced that it would introduce a €100 fee for funeral directors per death notice.

Since then, at least three new death notice platforms have announced plans to launch in the coming weeks. 

However, Whitmore believes that having death notices split up between various sources would not be in “the public good”.

In a statement this afternoon, Whitmore said that RIP.ie “has proven to be a highly effective way of notifying people of deaths that occur in local communities around the country, with millions using the service to find out funeral details and express their condolences”.

“The decision by the new owners of the popular website to introduce a €100 fee from the start of this year will undoubtedly impact the effectiveness of the service, as the charge will place an additional financial burden on bereaved families,” Whitmore said.

The TD said that the emergence of multiple new websites instead “will inevitably result in a more fractured service, making it more difficult – particularly for elderly people living in rural areas – to find funeral details online”.

“In Ireland, funerals are something that we do particularly well, with communities coming together to offer support and comfort to bereaved families at very difficult times,” she said.

“The emergence of multiple death notice websites will not serve the public good. Instead of a situation where people have to navigate several online platforms to access funeral details, I believe consideration should now be given to setting up a State-run death notice website, offering a centralised service that is easy to use and free of charge for users.”

An operator of one of the prospective new websites, Letterkenny-based funeral supplier Danny Morning, said he would aim to keep his site – Condolence.ie – free to use.

Speaking to The Journal, he said that a €100 fee for a death notice was “hard to swallow” for funeral directors.

Morning said that he knew the brother and sister Jay Coleman and Dympna Coleman who founded RIP.ie and sold it to the Irish Times Group. “They were brilliant and very successful in their own right but when it’s bought over and purchased, I’d think the money needs to be recouped,” he said.

“Funeral directors try to keep their bottom line as low as possible for grieving families and I don’t think people realise how much it can cost to do a funeral,” Morning said, “but not everybody has the money for that €100, it’s such a leap.