An external, highly confidential audit of the SIRESP communication system was commissioned by the previous government under the then Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho. The report recommended urgent improvements to the national emergency service communications system but nothing was done.
The confidential audit of SIRESP was requested in 2014 by the then Minister of Internal Administration, Miguel Macedo (pictured left) and in August that year the highly critical report was issued proposing short and medium-term measures that needed urgently to be implemented.
The 2014 report looked at the weaknesses of the communications network as it had displayed worrying operating problems during the huge 2014 storm. The unchanged SIRESP system then failed during the July 2017 Pedrógão Grande fire in which 64 people lost their lives
The audit pointed out several SIRESP system problems, the most pressing being the ‘network resilience,’ i.e. the capacity that the system needs to continue to operate when, for example, fibre-optic cables are destroyed by fire: this is exactly what happened at Pedrógão Grande.
Another of the problems pointed out in the confidential 2014 report was the lack of network coverage in Leiria. Unfortunately this is the district in which Pedrogão Grande is located.
Another of the shortcomings listed in the audit was active service hand-set battery life which was, and still is, around 20 hours, seen as insufficient when tackling a blaze that raged for around five days.
Other recommendations included the establishment of a geo-referencing system that allows vehicles to be located and tracked.
The audit report estimated that the necessary investment in improvements to the communications system would cost, in the first two years, around €1.4 million, rising to €11 million as more advanced improvements were made over time.
Clearly aware of the 2014 audit report, the current Minister of Internal Administration has ordered an audit by the General Inspectorate of Internal Administration to assess the €40 million-a-year SIRESP system and its compliance with "legal and contractual obligations and its management, maintenance and inspection schedule," a remit that avoids the operational areas of concern highlighted in the 2014 report.
The failed company, Galilei, owns 33% of SIRESP; the P.T. Group (owned by Altice) has a 30.55% share; Motorola, which provides the technology, has 14.9%; 9,55% is held by Datacomp; Esegur (owned by Caixa Geral de Depósitos and Novo Banco) has 12%.
SIRESP SA has laid the blame for the communications failure at Pedrógão Grande - a failure it denies - on emergency personnel making personal calls and chatting for too long during calls made on the SIRESP system.
See also: 'Pedrógão Grande fire communications failure - emergency personnel should have made fewer calls'
