John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My understanding is that the company has advised the Department that it sold more than 150,000 EPIRBs between 2004 and 2012, with a failure rate of 0.11%. The reliability of these devices needs to be independently assessed. The Minister mentioned smoke alarms. If a particular brand of smoke alarm in public housing was found to be defective in any way, we would not just issue an alert. The likelihood is that we would have the brand recalled. Admittedly, this situation is a bit more complicated, but we need to determine quickly whether these safety beacons can be trusted. If we determine that there is an unreasonable risk, they need to be recalled.

We need to check to determine whether Bureau Veritas, the compliance agency, is satisfied with the company's explanation. We also need to ask about the testing methodology used by Bureau Veritas.

I agree with my colleague, Deputy Harrington, that the first step is to ensure that everyone who has an EPIRB understands that there is a potential risk. People need to be contacted by the Department individually while this situation is investigated.

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