A QUARTER of calls to the Cork City Fire Service in 2013 and 2014 were hoax, and a fifth of calls to the county service were.
Figures obtained from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government showed that 69 out of 265 calls to Cork City Fire Service, in 2013, were hoax, while 85 of 346 calls received in 2014 were hoax.
The Cork County Fire Brigade received 162 malicious calls in 2013 (out of 622), while 107 calls of the 581 received in 2014 were also hoax.
The figures were provided to Fianna Fáil deputy, Michael McGrath, on foot of a parliamentary question.
Spokesman for Cork City Fire Brigade, Edward Buckley, warned that a person can be prosecuted for making hoax calls, which waste the time of fire crews who might otherwise respond to a legitimate call.
A spokesman for the Department of Communication said: “Details of hoax calls are referred by the Emergency Call Answering Service to An Garda Síochána for investigation. Where a successful prosecution is brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions, the courts will decide on any penalty.”
In one case last year, a Clare teenager was sentenced to ten months in prison after making two hoax calls to the emergency services.
Deputy McGrath said it was “incredible” that so many malicious calls were being made to the fire services in Cork.
He added: “Not only is this costing the emergency services tens of thousands of euro per annum, but it is placing an unnecessary burden on services that are already stretched. If the people making such calls think it is fun, they should bear in mind that their hoax call could be denying a vital service to another person in a life-or-death situation. None of us knows the day, nor the hour, when we might need the fire service.”
The high number of hoax calls to the fire service in Cork is not unique to the city and county.
Dublin Fire Brigade has responded to 5,246 hoax and false call-outs over the last five years. 1,245 hoax calls, known as malicious false alarms, have been made to the Dublin service since the start of 2011, while 3,971 “false-alarm good-intention” reports were made in the same period.
Cork County Council provides a service from 21 fire stations, which are located throughout the county.
It responds to 3,000 emergency calls each year.
These calls include domestic and commercial fires, road traffic accidents, gorse fires, chemical incidents and other hazardous occurrences.
The Fire Brigade in Cork City operates from two stations, the headquarters in Anglesea Street and from a sub-station in the Ballyvolane area.