There has been an ‘astronomical increase' in the number of hoax calls being made to the HSE's ambulance service in recent years, a Fine Gael TD has warned.

According to Mayo TD, John O'Mahony, just over 650 hoax calls were made to the service in 2007. However by 2012, this figure had risen to more than 4,300 - an increase of 660%.

"In some instances the people behind these hoax calls may hang up once they are asked for further details, but in many other cases, emergency services are being dispatched unnecessarily to attend crises which have been fabricated by people with nothing better to do with their time," Deputy O'Mahony explained.

He described this as a ‘grotesque waste of emergency responders' time'.

Deputy O'Mahony is calling for the introduction of ‘proper penatlies', to ensure that people who make hoax calls to emergency services ‘are held to account and named and shamed'.