Written answers
Monday, 8 September 2025
Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment
Departmental Policies
Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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1071. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his views on the feasibility of a proposal (details supplied); if he has plans to enhance location identification in rural and tourist areas. [45164/25]
Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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Displaying Eircodes on properties, while being very beneficial in locating properties with challenging addresses, is a matter for property owners themselves. More broadly, the Deputy might be interested to know that an emergency mobile phone precise location service continues in operation and greatly assists the emergency services in determining the exact location of people in need that call 999 or 112.The Advanced Mobile Location (AML) is available on both Android and Apple devices and works by automatically finding a phone's GPS co-ordinates and sending them by way of a text message to the Emergency Call Answering Service when a 112 or 999 number is dialled. The co-ordinates are immediately passed to the emergency services in responding and dispatching emergency personnel to callers in need across the country, particularly in rural areas.
More generally, the roll-out of infrastructure for mobile telecommunications services in Ireland is primarily a matter for mobile network operators, operating on a commercial basis in a liberalised market, regulated by the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg). ComReg is statutorily independent in the exercise of its functions in accordance with section 11 of the Communications Regulation Act 2002.
Mobile network operators are continuously enhancing and improving their network coverage in line with their MBSA2 licence obligations, with a key focus on delivering improved coverage to population centres, such as places where people work and live, rather than solely focusing on geographical coverage. They continue to add new capacity to their networks using their newly acquired radio spectrum. The timing of the improvements delivered by mobile operators are influenced in part by their ability to acquire and build new sites for increased coverage.
In addition, ComReg publishes a map, which is searchable using an Eircode or address, Provider displaying outdoor coverage for 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile networks (available at: coveragemap.comreg.ie), to provide information to consumers on the availability of mobile service.
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