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Thursday, 19 January 2012

Avoiding a Festive Feast (or similar) on Your Premises

Many of you probably heard about the recent court case against a security company by Brasserie Sixty6 which was settled out of court this week.  You probably thought , as we did, how did this happen, wasn't their a security system?  There was, but the system failed the restaurant.  This may have you wondering about your own alarm and security systems and hoping they don't let you down.  Here are a few tips to make sure you don't supply Christmas dinner, or more, to some unwelcome visitors:

  1. Alarm Installation - Make sure your alarm company is licensed.  Installers of alarm systems must hold a current PSA license and that will allow you to ensure your provider is meeting their legislative requirements under the Private Security Services Act 2004. Irish Security Industry Association (ISIA) members will also hold Qualsec, the ISIA's quality standard.  For a listing of ISIA members click here. 
  2. Alarm Maintenance - Keep your alarm maintained.  Maintenance contracts are critical to ensuring your electronic security doesn't let you down when you really need it.  Often business and homeowners complain about this cost, but you would be kicking yourself if you hadn't had the necessary maintenance carried out and that led to a break-in at your home or business. 
  3. Alarm Monitoring - Have your alarm monitored.  The sound of an alarm going off is an irritant, but haven't you ever ignored it's irksome noise somewhere nearby.  If an alarm is monitored the alarm receiving centre will be in a position to notify you and notify the authorities.  However, for the Gardai to respond it must be a maintained alarm with a URN.  It is also important to be aware that monitoring stations should notify you or your alarm company if their is a failure during their regular testing.  
  4. Physical Security is crucial.  You don't want a criminal to be able to gain entry to your premises in the first place and you should consider the quality of the doors at entry points, particularly secluded access points. 
  5. Safes - Day safes should not have cash left in it overnight and should have anti-fish features.  When cash is stored overnight it should be in a euro graded safe.  
  6. CCTV - CCTV can be extremely useful to those investigating the a crime after it has taken place, but you should have your CCTV system stored in a secure area, if that is destroyed the cameras won't have been much use to you.  Installers of CCTV do not currently require a license, but that is likely to change this year and if you are having a CCTV system installed it might be wise to use an installer already licensed for alarms.  
  7. Secure Room - A secure room may be used for your CCTV, overnight safe and alarm control panel and have additional access control so that if someone does make it inside your premises they shouldn't be able to get into your secure room. 
If you need any further information please visit the ISIA's website. For suppliers you can trust please have a look at our member listings or give us a call on +353-1-4847206.  

If you didn't have a chance to read about the festive feast at Brasserie Sixty6, have a look at the link below. 


Fine festive feast on the menu as four eat their fill after break-in - Courts, National News - Independent.ie
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4 comments:

  1. Stephen19 January 2012 at 06:15

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Stephen19 January 2012 at 06:19

    Hi Sarah, as an Independant Security Consultant I was interested in your blog and would like to make some observations particualrly on the CCTV issue. It is my experience that for many reasons CCTV systems fail to live up to the expectation placed on them by the custoemrs. I have seen so much poor quality content and unusable data that I feel someone somewhere has missed the point. I find that CCTV cameras are often sited too high in selected areas to be of any use in face or vehicle recognition. Poor or no maintenance, useles in low light conditions, unmonitored, meaning we get unusable historic data after the event. I ralise there are many reasons for these gaps in effectiveness and some are directly related to what the client has in the budget, however I feel there is room to look at the effectiveness of these systems relative to the cost. I often feel that people have a much higher expectation from the CCTV systems than the sytem can actually deliver. I have worked in the criminal justice and security worlds for many years and have sat in courtroom and heard the evidence of the perpetrators of crime, and I firmly beleive that CCTV in some situations is not the deterrent many people think it is .
    Stephen Heffernan MD SERIMA1

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    Replies
    1. Irish Security Industry Association19 January 2012 at 07:19

      Thank you Stephen for the very worthwhile addition to our post. There are so many things that need to be considered when implementing CCTV that it was an area well worth expanding on.

      In the case of Brasserie Sixty6, CCTV seemed to be the one thing that did not let them down, but it easily could have had it not been installed properly. It certainly did not act as a deterrent!

      Delete
  3. Jeffery Clark6 July 2012 at 09:51

    Well.. You have describe a good tips here to aware people about some tips that might be helpful while they are planning a security system in their house to protect their beloved family members and expensive things from criminals as security is more concern era nowadays so we should need to take advices from a expert before buying and hiring security services.
    Best Home Security Companies Ireland

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