Cheap Sim only plan - No data needed

Thanks! Lyca's €75/year is great, even if it is for some limited time:

After the initial discounted period price will revert back to €9/30 days, you need to have enough balance to renew.

But €9 per month is a good price too.

Eir Mobile €9.99pm SIM-only, in bundle, if your Dad is in a position to add mobile to an existing landline/fibre broadband/TV bundle. TV is also only €9.99pm in an eir bundle - so even if your Dad doesn't use Broadband, it may be worth his while having the bundle for mobile & TV.

The mobile operators tend to promote the flat monthly rate "unlimited" SIMO & PAYG deals, but some of the old PAYG plans still exist, although they are not promoted widely. The old plans charged per minute for calls and per GB for data, so quite expensive if you have high usage. However, the old plans are ideal for your application. I have an Eir SIM in an electric gate - it doesn't use any data, mainly incoming calls and texts and occasionally an outgoing text. I top it up with €5 every 150 days, and it works fine. This would work for your incoming diverted calls from landline.

No need to pay €75 a year to Lyca. You can order an eir prepay SIM online at this site -

https://eir.ie/mobile/prepay/

Choose the €10 option - this will give you service for an initial 14 days. If you don't top up after 14 days you will revert to a legacy plan where you just need to top up once every 150 days. You can top up by €5 every 150 days to keep the SIM alive. (Probably even longer if you just want incoming calls). It's a while since I set up my PAYG SIM, but it still works fine with 150 day €5 top-ups - but as far as I remember you don't have to do anything to switch plan. You could also go into an Eir store - they would probably give you a SIM that is already configured for the PAYG legacy plan. They just don't advertise the old plans any more - but they still work.

Outgoing also works fine for first 150 days - but you only get €5 worth of calls or texts if you only top-up once in this period. The legacy plans charge per text (15c) and per call(12c setup, 39c/min), so you won't be long going through your credit with normal usage. If you wanted to make the €5 last, you could get the kids to text you, and call them back? It works fine in my gate - because I never need outgoing calls - just incoming - and very occasionally I might need a few text messages outgoing, if I need to re-program any settings in the gate that involve outputting back to me. I have never gone near using the full €5 in 150 days!