A NEW MEASURE that is set to be rolled out by the communications regulator next year aims to tackle scam calls from international numbers. 

It comes amid an increase in scam calls from UK-registered numbers in recent weeks. 

There have been multiple reports of an increase in Irish people getting scam phone calls from UK +44 numbers in recent weeks.

Some phone users have reported multiple calls in a day or week.

These callers can be automated voices or live scammers, sometimes purporting to be working for private companies or tech support for a bank or other organisation, and they will usually attempt to get some personal or sensitive information from the person being called.

Speaking to The Journal, cyber security expert Paul Delahunty said the weeks leading up to Christmas can be a particularly fruitful time for scammers, because in the increase in online shopping and other spending activity.

Delahunty, who is chief information security officer with cloud IT company Stryve, said that rounds of scam calls tend “to come in waves”.

“It’s just the way it goes. It’s hard to know exactly why, but more than likely it is that numbers come up on the dark web for a particular country.”

Scammers will then focus on that country for a specific period of time, before moving onto another location, Delahunty added.

ComReg response

The Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) said in a statement to The Journal that it is planning to roll out a tool that will block scam calls from Ireland or abroad, and protect against future sophisticated scams. 

The so-called ‘Voice Firewall’ will use advanced real time call data analytics and machine learning to detect unusual patterns of call signalling data, volumes of traffic and call originating location and act on them. 

The measure will go live in the first half of next year, with the regulator saying it “should provide an important defence against scam calls, notably including those which spoof international numbers”.

According the ComReg’s general advice for protecting against scam phone calls, the volume of scam calls does not follow and particular pattern, and rises and falls in line with scammer campaign activity which can be variable.

The regulator has recently put in a number of measures to attempt to crack down on the number of scam calls that people receive. It works in conjunction with the regulatory authorities in other countries to tackle the issue.

These measures include a list to prevent fraudsters using numbers that have not been allocated to a telecoms operator before entering service, and fixed and mobile CLI call blocking to stop scammers abroad from spoofing Irish phone numbers to make scam calls.

Between February 2023 and October 2025, ComReg blocked over 131 million scam calls. Of those, more than 18 million were blocked in September of this year. 

With reporting from Jane Moore