A text service used by 1,700 schools to send text alerts to parents and staff members has now been restored having broken down overnight due to an unprecedented level of usage.
The Textaparent.ie service, through which over half a million texts were sent in the past week since the cold snap began affecting schools, shut down between 9pm yesterday and 9am this morning due to the level of traffic on the site.
“This was as a result of unprecedented demand which overloaded the server,” said Sean Cottrell, director of the Irish Primary Principals’ Network, which provides the text service.
He said the high level of traffic was due to the rapidly changing weather conditions. Some schools were providing multiple updates to parents.
“The unpredictability of the weather conditions meant that schools were having to change tack within a couple of hours,” he said.
"We have put measures in place to make sure that the server can handle a much higher volume,” Mr Cottrell said, adding that the site was back up and running from 9am this morning.
The text service, which has been in place since 2003, allows schools to text parents about school closures or upcoming events through a database of phone numbers retained by the school. It can be updated during the school year if people change their mobile numbers.