One in 12 calls to the ambulance and fire services in Northern Ireland were malicious, it was revealed today.
Although the number of hoaxes has fallen during the past five years there were an average of 37 every day, according to Health Minister Michael McGimpsey. He issued the data to DUP Strangford MLA Simon Hamilton in the Assembly.
Mr Hamilton said: "At a time whenever finances are tight and the Health Minister has been encouraged to make efficiencies so that cash can be freed up for front-line services, the hoax calls faced by the fire and ambulance services are a complete and utter waste of much-needed money.
"Every call that is a hoax leaves one less ambulance or one less fire appliance available at that time to respond to a genuine incident.
"The dire consequences of such a set of circumstances occurring are unthinkable."
A spokeswoman for the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service said: "Hoax calls are anti-social behaviour which can have a detrimental effect on emergency services' cover as fire appliances and crews may waste vital time responding to what turns out to be a hoax call."
She added that call centre staff had been trained to challenge fakers. Mr Hamilton calculated that the problem cost the Ambulance Service stg6.2m since 2003.
There were 67,276 malicious calls to the fire and ambulance services during the last five years.
The overall tally fell from a high of almost 15,000 in 2004 to its present level of 12,463. The 2007 figure was only 20 less than 2003.