Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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420. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the average Garda response times to emergency and non-emergency calls for each Garda division; and the number of calls that were not responded to. [66794/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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The Garda Commissioner is by law responsible for all operational policing matters, including the response by An Garda Síochána to emergency calls.

An Garda Síochána operates a Regional Control Room strategy which ensures that Garda resources are available to respond to calls for service from the public, including situations where a local resource is not immediately available.

Calls for service, whether received through a local Garda station or the 999 ECAS system, are routed through the Regional Control Rooms and prioritised for response. Higher priority calls will always take priority over lower priority calls.

I am informed that the Garda Regional Control Centres answer every 999/112 call that Emergency Call Answering Service (ECAS) needs to connect. If the caller hangs up before the call is answered, the ECAS operator will stay on the call and connect the call giving all relevant information. In the rare event that a technical issue arises in one of the Regional Control Rooms, ECAS will stay on the call and route the call to a Garda call taker at an alternative location.

The Garda authorities inform me that An Garda Síochána aim to answer 80% of 999 calls within 7 seconds and deploy resources immediately giving an estimated time of arrival. They will endeavour to get to callers within 15 minutes in urban locations and as soon as possible, given the distance to be travelled, in more rural areas.

I am advised by the Garda authorities that, for sound operational reasons, An Garda Síochána does not provide its emergency response times in respect of specific locations. As the Deputy will understand, these are operational matters for Garda management.