Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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107. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the way in which the recently awarded contract for the emergency call answering service will ensure there is a reliable and safe emergency call out service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29761/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The contract for a new Emergency Call Answering Service Operator is subject to an on-going procurement process which is being conducted in accordance with relevant national public procurement policy and European Union Directive 2004/18/EC.

However, I can say that my priority is to ensure that all calls to the Emergency Call Answering Service are answered quickly and efficiently and forwarded, as appropriate, to the Emergency Services to ensure the safety and well-being of citizens.

As such, the successful tenderer will be required to meet a number of key performance indicators, set out in the procurement process, to ensure that a reliable and safe Emergency Call Answering Service is available on a 24 hour, 7 day a week basis. The system:

- must be designed and configured in a resilient manner to support the provision of a high availability system with a minimum availability of 99.999% on a monthly basis;

- must comprise of a minimum of two geographically separated operator centres where calls are answered and configured so that all calls can be answered at one centre if required. A separate contingency site must also be provided;

- must also include two data centres for housing telephony and data storage systems which must also be geographically separated from each other so that the loss of one centre does not affect the availability of the overall service.

In addition, the service must have operators in place to answer all calls to the service throughout the day including calls from persons with a disability. Procedures must be in place to ensure additional operators can be deployed to deal with unforeseen increases in emergency calls, if required.