Fall in number of emergency calls

The company that handles 999/112 emergency calls saw a significant drop in the number of calls made to the service in 2014.

The Emergency Call Answering Service, operated by BT Ireland, redirects emergency calls from its public safety answering points in Donegal, Meath, and Dublin to the four main emergency services.

The service handled almost 2.2m calls in 2014, or an average of more than 6,000 every day, a drop of 500,000 on the previous year.

Service operators handled almost 2.7m calls in 2013 and approximately 2.8m in 2012.

The 2.2m calls last year represents an almost 50% drop on 4.1m emergency calls made in 2008.

Gardaí remains the most requested service, followed by the ambulance service, local authority fire services, and the Coast Guard.

BT Ireland operates from public safety answering points at Ballyshannon, Co Donegal; Navan, Co Meath; and East Point Business Park, Dublin, where almost 80 people are employed.

In its first year of operation, BT Ireland handled more than 3m emergency calls, an average of more than 8,200 every day.

“The implementation of the new service represented the largest change programme for the emergency services on how 999/112 calls are handled, routed and handed over,” a BT Ireland spokeswoman said

“Caller line identification has become a key component of the service for the first time, with the location of the caller from both fixed and mobile phones used to automatically determine the emergency services control centre to which the call should be forwarded for the first time.”

Completely new hardware and software platforms were installed at the new centres along with additional features including caller location evaluation, call handling and auditing abilities as well as SMS to 999/112 functionality.

While calls to 999/112 are free to the public, the service is paid for by authorised telecoms operators who pay a call handling fee set by ComReg.