Westport politician confused with phone-sex model

UNFORTUNATE MIX-UP Cllr Brendan Mulroy (right) was forced to cancel his landline after sex-line callers repeatedly phoned his home in error.

Babestation models to visit Westport tomorrow to ‘personally apologise’ to Westport residents who were mistakenly contacted

Edwin McGreal

Politicians are used to get all manner of phone calls, but Westport-based Fianna FΡil Cllr Brendan Mulroy was still ill-prepared for calls to his home from elderly men asking him ‘are you the lady on the TV?’.
Mulroy is one of a number of Westport residents who received calls from Irish caller mistakingly thinking they were ringing the UK-based adult TV station Babestation.
When dialling the UK 0982 numbers, the callers failed to drop the 0 and include the international prefix for the UK (0044), which connected the callers to landlines in the Westport area.
The adult chatline is sending two of its models to Westport tomorrow to apologise.

‘Are you the lady on the TV?’
Five years ago, the Mulroys’ landline started to ring incessantly from 10pm onwards at night and they had no choice but to get rid of the phone.
“I would usually answer and I would usually be met with silence or people saying they have the wrong number. One time I was asked ‘Are you the lady on the TV?’. Most of the callers sounded like older men,” Cllr Mulroy told The Mayo News today (Wednesday).
“After the third or fourth night we went to the Gardaí. Our kids were young at the time. We thought it might be a prank call, but the callers’ numbers were coming up, which would be unlikely to happen with a prank call. The Gardaí got to the bottom of it, but they couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t a crime; it was just an honest mistake. All we could do was get rid of the landline,” he added.
Before contacting the Gardaí, Mulroy rang some of the numbers back through the caller ID function in their landline.
“The callers were male, and they weren’t young men. They denied making the calls despite the caller ID. We had a lot of different callers. If we didn’t take the phone off the hook, the phone would keep ringing. We were relieved it wasn’t a prank caller to be honest.
“Gardaí told me quickly what the problem was. I gave them the phone numbers of the callers, and they obviously got talking to them. They weren’t ringing to speak to me. They were looking for a different service!
“Gardaí did their job 100 percent, and all I could do was get rid of the landline. It was one less bill in the house and we were using mobiles more then anyway.”
Cllr Mulroy said he did not pursue it any further, as he did not know of anyone else being affected until Minister of State Michael Ring raised it recently and the story broke last weekend.
Speaking at the weekend, Minister of State Michael Ring said he had received complaints of constituents being ‘inundated’ with calls.
“They are getting these calls in the middle of night. One of those people has an elderly mother and family members all over the world, and there could be a call at any time, which they would have to take,” Mr Ring said.

Personal apology
In a statement issued yesterday (Tuesday) Adult TV station Babestation explained the mix-up and announced plans to personally apologise to people who received calls.
“It is Babestation’s understanding, through both the recent media coverage, and contact with a number of professional bodies, that there may have been unintentional calls made to residents of Westport.
“Babestation recognise this as an innocent misunderstanding and they are extremely aware that disappointed callers in Ireland, whose intention it was to speak to one of the Babestation girls, may have inadvertently reached homes on the west coast of Ireland.
“They also recognise the impact that this has had on those that may have received these calls, and would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.
“Babestation are keen to stress, and will continue to do so publicly, that when dialling a UK number, the ‘0’ [in 098] should be replaced by ‘00 44’.
“As a show of support and recognition, Babestation, and two of their models, will be visiting Westport on January 26 at around 2pm to speak to residents and local people.”
Hopefully they will wrap up warm, as the weather is forecast to be cold and wet tomorrow.