A Donegal fire officer has appealed to the public to stop making hoax calls after a 64 per cent jump in the number of bogus incidents.
Fire officer Joe McTaggart said the increase in such calls in the past five years had put lives at risk. “People have to remember that when the fire service is responding to a hoax or malicious call the service cannot respond to other possible genuine calls.”
Last summer dozens of gorse fires broke out across the county, some set maliciously. However during this period a number of hoax calls were also made.
Mr McTaggart said that not all hoax calls were made by young people but that adults were also to blame. He revealed that in 2011 there were 23 hoax calls made to the fire service, which cost the taxpayer €35,000. “That is money which could have been spent on other services in Co Donegal.”
He said anyone caught making hoax calls was liable to be prosecuted, while Donegal County Council was also entitled by law to recoup the cost of the call-out.
There has been a major investment in fire-fighting services across Donegal in recent years, with €11 million spent on new fire stations in towns such as Gweedore and Letterkenny.
The cost of running the fire service in Donegal this year will be some €6 million. The county has 15 fire stations, with almost 150 firefighters.