Emergency call service system 'out of action for more than an hour'

Rebecca Black, PA

The State's emergency call system was out of action for more than an hour in the early hours of Tuesday morning, it has been confirmed.

The service was unable to handle emergency calls to 999 and 112 between 1am and 2.15am on Tuesday.

In a statement, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said the outage affected approximately 227 callers.

All those affected received a follow-up call by An Garda Síochána.

The department was notified of the issue by BT Communications Ireland Ltd (BTCIL) which has a contract to deliver the Emergency Call Answering Service.

The Minister of State, Ossian Smyth, who has been briefed on the outage, said the department has now sought a detailed and comprehensive report from BTCIL on the incident.

While the immediate priority is on ensuring that there is no risk of a similar occurrence in the future, Mr Smyth said the department will establish the precise circumstances that gave rise to the service outage and then, in consultation with its legal advisers, determine the consequences under the contract.