Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South-West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senator for the passion he brings to the topic. The Department has a community smoke alarm scheme which funds approximately 12,000 smoke alarms annually. It was further extended to include more vulnerable and high risk households through the introduction of alarms for the hard of hearing in 2023-24. So far in 2024-25, the scheme has seen 15,000 standard alarms and 240 alarms for the heard of hearing supplied to fire services. There is a scheme. It could be expanded and rolled out on a greater scale. I do not know how practical it would be to address every household, but, certainly, the more households we can get these alarms into, the better. There are approximately 1.8 million households in Ireland, but the Senator is targeting those built before 1997. That makes complete sense. On the back of this, we definitely need a further focus on education and not just a weekly campaign in the year, but an all-year-round campaign on fire safety and the extension of the community alarm scheme to make sure more households get alarms. I again thank the Senator for raising the matter.