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.