Monday's city council meeting almost descended into a debate on semantics, as councillors and officials debated the nature of emergencies.

After a question from Cllr Colette Connolly about an out-of-hours phone number for the council, city officials replied that 999 was the number to call in an emergency.

Cllr Connolly claimed it was "completely unacceptable" that residents experiencing problems in council housing could not call council repair teams outside office hours and asked why councillors could not be trusted with phone numbers. "The fire service has all the appropriate numbers and will refer people on to the relevant service," replied Director of Services Ciarán Hayes.

However, Cllr Connolly clarified that the type of emergency to which she was referring would involve housing and similar issues of importance to her constituents. Cllr Padraig Conneely disagreed, saying, "a heating issue is not really an emergency, in the scheme of things", with Cllr John Mulholland pondering, "What is an emergency?"

She pointed out that during the water crisis, the emergency number given was that of the Terryland Water Treatment Plant. "When I did ring it, they said 'How did you get this number?" she added.

Much to the ire of Cllr Daniel Callanan, who asked in despair "how did we get from water services to this?", the debate raged on, culminating in an almost-unanimous vote for a directory.

However, City Manager Joe MacGrath indicated resistance to this, saying, "I will not have a whole raft of phone numbers being sent around, that's ridiculous."

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