Hoax fire brigade calls cost city €4m
New figures show almost a quarter of all the false alarm calls made to the city’s fire service between 2007 and 2011 were made with malicious intent.
With each call-out costing up to €1,000, it is estimated the malicious calls could have cost a staggering €4.6m, as well as wasting valuable emergency service time and resources.
The full scale of the problem was revealed when the Department of the Environment released the statistics to Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony.
They show, of the 4,640 false alarm calls made to the city’s fire service between 2007 and 2011, 1,113 were malicious in nature.
His Cork South Central colleague, Jerry Buttimer said: “This means more than one in every four calls made to the fire services in Cork city, or 26% of the calls phoned in, is a complete waste of the emergency response’s time and resources.”
The situation in the city, when compared to the figures relating to the Cork County fire service, indicates the problem is much more prevalent in urban areas.
County figures show of the 1,514 false alarm calls reported during the five year period, only 136 were deemed malicious.
“People need to be made aware that when the emergency services are responding to prank calls, there may be someone in distress who they cannot reach as a result, making hoax calls of this nature, literally, a matter of life and death,” Mr Buttimer said.
Both TDs have now called for penalties to be imposed on people behind the malicious calls.
“Repeat offenders, who insist on wasting the fire service’s time should be held account for their devious and harmful antics,” Mr Buttimer said.
“They should be named and shamed and have financial penalties imposed.
“Resources are already badly stretched. It’s high time these pranksters were made aware of the full extent of what they are doing and the potential harm they may be inflicting on others as a result.”
1,152 false alarm calls
261 considered to have malicious intent
980 false alarm calls
228 considered to have malicious intent
877 false alarm calls
212 considered to have malicious intent
919 false alarm calls
298 considered to have malicious intent
712 false alarm calls
214 considered to have malicious intent
