Vol. 537 No. 4
71 Mr. N. Ahern asked the Minister for Public Enterprise if she will comment on the service given by Met Éireann on weather forecasts by telephone; if this is under the control of an agency under the aegis of her Department; and if she will instruct that the service be improved and updated more often; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [16496/01]
A premium-rate telephone weather-forecast service, known as Weatherdial, is provided by Met Éireann in co-operation with a private service provider, iTouch. Met Éireann is a division of the Department of Public Enterprise. Weatherdial is a highly successful and popular service provided on a commercial basis. There are some other premium rate weather services marketed by private sector companies but Met Éireann has no responsibility for these.
Weatherdial is updated three times daily, at 6 a.m., 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. As this is a commercial service, any decision to increase the update frequency would have to take into consideration both the demand for such a change and the extra resources required. The current assessment is that an increase in frequency is not called for.
Every effort is made to ensure that updates take place on time. However, technical difficulties and the higher priority attached to the issue of severe weather warnings in extreme situations occasionally result in delays. Some problems encountered recently were of a technical nature, affecting the delivery of the service, and were outside the control of Met Éireann.
