Emergency Call Answering Service outage due to a technical issue – BT Ireland

By Rebecca Black, PA

An hour long Emergency Call Answering Service outage was due to a technical issue, BT Ireland has said.

The service, which handles 999 and 112 calls and texts connecting people with An Garda Siochana, and the fire, ambulance and coast guard services, went down between between 1am and 2.15am on Tuesday.

The outage affected approximately 227 callers, who received a follow-up call by Gardai, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications said.

BT Ireland has a contract with the Government to operate the service.

In a statement, BT Ireland said the cause was not malicious.

“An internal technical issue prevented callers accessing the Emergency Call Answering Service from 0100am to 0215am on Tuesday June 28,” a BT Ireland spokesperson said.

“We quickly restored the service and can confirm the cause of the outage was not malicious in nature.

“We liaised with Gardai, providing them with the list of callers so that they could call them directly and offer help.

“We apologise unreservedly to any caller who may have been affected by this service issue.”

They added: “For more than 12 years, BT Ireland has operated the Emergency Call Answering Service on behalf of the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications (Decc), transforming it into one of the top performing emergency call handling services in Europe, and consistently meeting the high standards set out in the contract.

“It is a responsibility that we take with the utmost seriousness, and are working with DECC to ensure a technical error of this nature does not occur again.”