Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of non-geographic numbers and premium rate services, which are provided by various institutions, companies and organisations throughout the country. Non-geographic numbers begin with 1800, 1850, 1890, 0818 or 076. These are reduced-cost services, often those provided by State agencies. This week marks one year since ComReg stepped in to ensure that the costs of those numbers are deducted from mobile bundles. The way people use telephones has changed dramatically in recent years. Prior to 1 December last year, mobile companies would essentially charge extra if a caller rang the then Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection or somewhere like that. That has changed, which is a very welcome development. We are also about a year away from 1 January 2022, when that will change again. The number of those prefixes will be reduced to just two; 1800 for freephone numbers and 0818, for fixed-cost numbers. This is to be welcomed.

We need to mount a communications campaign around this to ensure that certain people are aware of that change. I am thinking particularly of elderly people, who may be unaware of, or confused, by these numbers, and other people in vulnerable categories. Perhaps even more important in this context are premium rate numbers, which can be exorbitantly expensive. There are 15 prefixes. They range from 1512, which costs 50 cent per call, to 1590 numbers, which cost €3.50 per minute. The text services that use these numbers are frequently advertised on various platforms. There must be a public information campaign on the costs of these services and the risk to phone users. Sometimes a cost is levied both for sending a text and receiving a text.There is vulnerability here for lots of different sectors of society. We need to talk about how we make sure that people know about the risks associated with premium rate numbers and provide clarification on non-geographic numbers.