Conduit and BT Ireland have secured a five year contract worth up to €55 million to provide the State’s 999/112 emergency call-answering service.

It will take over from current emergency call-operator Eircom in December.

The contract was secured in a tendering process that included the former State company and directory enquiry provider 11890 Ltd.

The customer service element of the contract will be handled by Conduit, the company that operates the 11850 directory enquiry service, and 100 new jobs are to be created to provide the service. Hiring will start in July.

Calls are required to be handled in English and Irish, and Conduit will employ a certain number of multilingual staff to deal with calls in other languages.

BT operates similar services in the UK and Northern Ireland.

The company said someone unable to accurately state their location would have their mobile phone located automatically using GPS technology.

The contract is effectively paid for by telephone service providers who are obliged to pay a fee per emergency call. This fee will rise to €2.23 this year.

The service is monitored by communications regulator ComReg, which reviews the fee annually.

Based on an average of 5 million emergency calls per annum, the service is expected to generate revenues of over €11 million a year for BT Ireland and Conduit.

The service will be based at three locations, East Point in Dublin, Navan, Co. Meath and Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal.

B T Ireland’s chief executive Chris Clark said: “We are very proud to have been selected by the Government to bring our expertise to bear in Ireland and provide such a critically-important service.”