Government Numbers 1890

Email to Minister Paschal Donohoe and Catherine Murphy TD, Social Democrats, Kildare North.

Good Afternoon Minister Donohoe.

I've copied Catherine Murphy TD in this email, as she is my local TD.

This is a minor grievance.

I needed to call the Tax Office yesterday, and the number available to call is an 1890 phone number. The recorded message acknowledges that it is going to be more expensive to call this number from a mobile phone. When I tried to use the local number provided as an alternative, the recorded message told me to hang up and call the 1890 number.

A number of facts seem to make it unreasonable that a national number is not provided instead of the 1890 number.

One problem is that less than half of the households in Ireland now have a landline (according to the Irish Communications Survey 2017), so it seems unfair to use a phone call which penalises mobile-only users to access a government service.

This is exacerbated by the fact that lower-income people are more likely to be mobile-only (this statistic is not verified by Irish statistics, as there seems to be no income details collected in the Irish Communications Survey, however it is demonstrated in a number of surveys in other countries, such as the National Health Interview Survey in the US, and these surveys deliver similar results to the ICS on other indicators).

As such, the people who are in the worst position to call an 1890 number are punished for taking advantage of government services.

It seems that all government numbers should be replaced with national numbers, because national numbers have reasonable tariffs from all suppliers.

1890 numbers are ultimately a relic from the days of different rates between national and local calls. Since the introduction of competition in the market, they have become basically pointless, and even worse than pointless as some mobile providers charge 31c per minute. That means that you can pay a euro before you even get past the robot-receptionist if you want to speak to someone in the tax office, and it is extremely punitive if you need help with something which is not available on the online Revenue system.

I understand that I am talking very small numbers, but it seems like a very easy way to make a lot of people's lives better.

Postscript

Catherine Murphy's office raised the matter with the Minister. Revenue replaced their 1890 number with local options in September 2018 — two months after this email. The Minister's response referenced a ComReg consultation on non-geographic numbers¹ which ultimately led to 1890 and 1850 numbers being withdrawn entirely from 1 January 2022.²