Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 29 November 2016
687. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he requested the public broadcasting of advertisements on both television and radio promoting the use of Eircode during emergency situations; and if so, the reason the public advertisements do not carry any endorsement by his Department. [36883/16]
View answer688. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his views on whether it was more appropriate to use public funds to run public awareness campaigns advising persons to ensure their Eircode is correct. [36884/16]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 687 and 688 together.
Eircode ran an advertising campaign on television and radio to raise public awareness of using Eircodes during emergency situations. Using Eircodes helps the National Ambulance Service (NAS) provide speedier access to care. The NAS integrated Eircodes into their Computer Aided Dispatch system (CAD) in February 2016. This means that callers to the ambulance service can give the patient’s Eircode, which is validated in the CAD system. The call taker can then locate the patient’s property and direct the nearest available ambulance to the correct location.
Ambulance emergency requests often come from isolated rural locations. NAS considers the Eircode information to be very important in the rapid identification of these rural addresses – in particular, responding to calls from any of the 35% non-unique addresses in the state which caused significant operational challenges in the past. On foot of the campaign, call takers in the National Ambulance Service noticed a big improvement in the elderly population knowing and keeping their Eircode close to the phone.
While there is no requirement to reference the Department in a public service announcement, my Department did approve the public awareness campaign.
