Welcome to the
Irish Text Relay Service

What is ITRS?

ITRS makes phone calls easier, enabling people who are deaf, hard-of-hearing or speech-impaired, to make and receive calls independently. The extent to which you use the various features of the ITRS may vary depending on your needs:

Type and Read

You type and our ITRS agents will convert the words to speech. Speech at the other end appears as text on your screen.

Speak and Read

You speak and read the responses. An ITRS call incorporates a standard phone call, presenting the option to speak instead of typing

Type and Listen

You type and the standard call that operates in parallel, enables listening to what the other party is saying. The text on your screen can operate like subtitles, substituting or supplementing your hearing.

How Does ITRS Work?

The ITRS uses live webchat that is accessible from a wide range of devices, including mobile phones, tablets, laptops and PCs. These chat sessions are initiated by firstly making a telephone call. The call is necessary to engage an ITRS agent on an ITRS webchat. Once you are connected, you can continue with the webchat alone. Alternatively, you can keep the call connected if you choose to complement the ITRS webchat with the phone call.

About ITRS

The ITRS service is operated by eir serving the customers of Three, eir, Sky, Tesco Mobile, Virgin Media, and Vodafone and is funded by all of these operators. The service is operated by an experienced team who are based in Ireland.

Calling an ITRS User

Firstly it important to ensure that the person you are calling has registered with the ITRS. If they are not registered, they can not be reached through the ITRS.

Calls are relayed through an ITRS agent who types your words to the ITRS user and reads back their typed responses to you.

Follow these three steps:

1. Have the contact number for the person that you are calling to hand, to call out to the relay agent at the start of the call.
2. Dial 1800 207 800
3. Follow the instructions given by the ITRS agent.

Please Note

The ITRS agent is purely a facilitator so please treat the conversation as a direct conversation between the ITRS user and the called or calling party.

Please be patient as relay calls will typically take longer than a regular call.

The ITRS operates with an open line between the caller and the called party for the benefit of hard of hearing people, so the called party may be able to hear you.

Be careful not to hang-up before the called party is ready to end the call.

Please wait until the ITRS agent clearly states that the called party has nothing to add.

ITRS Privacy Statement

We’re a regulated service

As a regulated service, we have to comply with strict guidelines and criteria that apply to all providers of relay services. ComReg regularly reviews our performance. We also keep all our employees up to date with mandatory training on data protection and privacy and information security.

Knowledge and Experience of Data protection

We are fully compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which means that your data is completely safe. Our relay service is also covered by the eir Privacy Policy.

Keeping personal information secure

Be assured when providing personal information over the relay service, that we take the security of this information very seriously. Conversations are encrypted when passed to and from your relay agent and are then deleted after a conversation has finished.

Relay Assistant Compliance

Our relay agents are very experienced and we screen everyone very carefully before we employ them. Agents are required to adhere to strict confidentiality rules, including stringent policies to prevent the noting down of anything from relay conversations.