Govt faces EC action over 'inadequate' 999 service
The Government was facing legal action from the European Commission today over its failure to provide an adequate 999 emergency telephone alert system.
The commission is taking action to ensure the emergency services system in Ireland pinpoints the location of a person making a 999 call from a mobile phone.
Viviane Reding, the Information Society and Media Commissioner, said: “The ability to locate emergency callers can save lives, and I urge the Member States to lose no more time in making the necessary changes, so that these proceedings and all other pending cases can be closed.”
The commission has begun infringement proceedings concerning the non-availability of caller location information to emergency authorities via the 999 number in Ireland, and the common European emergency number 112, in 11 Member States.
Other countries targeted over this problem include Greece, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Hungary, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovakia.
If Ireland does not introduce an emergency telephone system which identifies the location of every caller it will be taken to the European Court of Justice.
An EU directive from 2002 establishes that caller location information should be available for all emergency calls.
The latest move follows the publication of the 11th Implementation Report which highlighted immediate action would be taken if this problem was not remedied by Member States.
