Plan to centralise 999 calls is ‘madness’

A senior member of the group which represents the country’s rank-and-file gardaí has claimed plans to centralise 999 calls for all of Co Cork is “madness” and “will not work”.

All calls to gardaí in the county are soon set to be rooted to the communications room in Anglesea St Garda Station in Cork City.

Up to now, calls for North and East Cork were dealt with by the communications room in Fermoy Garda Station.

Meanwhile, 999 calls emanating from North-West and West Cork were dealt with by gardaí in the communications room at Bandon Garda Station.

Garda Michael Corcoran, a central executive committee member of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), said the decision to centralise all calls at Anglesea St would “lead to a massive diminution of the level of service we provide to the public”.

He said the communications room at the station was already overloaded.

“On a busy Friday or Saturday night in Cork City, the communications room is going non-stop and a lot of emergency calls fail to get through on the first or even second attempt.”

He said the city station was struggling to keep pace during peak times and would be further inundated with 999 calls from other city Garda stations which are to close to the public from 9pm-7am.

Garda Corcoran said that while gardaí would still be present during those times in Gurranabraher, Mayfield, Togher, and the Bridewell stations, they would not answer calls. These will automatically be re-rooted to Anglesea St.

He warned it would cause further problems as gardaí in the communications room will be unable to ring back a 999 caller. “The only number which will come up is the number of the station they ring as it is being re-rooted from there. This could represent a serious safety problem,” he said.

He estimates the centralisation of all calls to the Anglesea St station will increase the workload of gardaí in the communications room by up to 60%.

“To cater for all of these extra commitments you would expect that more staffing would be allocated to the communications room. You would be wrong. No extra staff will be provided despite the fact that, at busy times, there is a huge volume of calls which go unanswered even with current staffing levels.

“This plan is pure madness. It can’t work and it won’t work.”

Garda management maintain that the centralised system will work and comes with technology that will enable gardaí in Anglesea St to track ongoing responses to all calls they receive.

They maintain it will provide them with accurate feedback on response times which will help them improve their service to the public.