CITY COUNCIL TO CONTRACT OUT EMERGENCY PHONE SERVICE

Date Published: 19-May-2008

The City Council is contracting out its after hours emergency telephone customer service.

It follows criticism by the Mayor of Galway Tom Costello of a bilingual city council voicemail message telling callers to ring 999 for city council emergencies after office hours.

A City Council spokesperson has told Galway Bay FM News the council is currently negotiating a more customer friendly service with several Call Management companies.

Meanwhile Galway County Council has no plans to change its out-of-hours emergency arrangements.

Rural dwellers must call 091- 58-55-55 in the event of emergencies, which is in fact the Galway city Fire Service.

County council Director of General Services Kevin Kelly said the city fire service takes calls for county-wide emergencies and he’s no knowledge of any problems arising as a result of that.

However Mr Kelly did say he would look into the matter if any problems did arise.