Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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Question 375: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he has proposals to grant the Garda additional powers to take all reasonable steps to turn off intruder alarms on vehicles and buildings, particularly when such alarms cause environmental nuisance to nearby workers and residents. [15526/04]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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Section 107 of the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 provides local authorities with powers to require measures to be taken to prevent or limit noise. I am aware that intruder alarms gave rise to 7%, 37 complaints, of the noise complaints made to Dublin City Council in 2002, down from 11% in 2001, and the third lowest of all categories of complaints. Where the council receives a complaint, an advisory letter is issued to the owner-occupier with guidelines on how to comply with the requirements of the relevant standard for alarms. Nevertheless, I recognise that alarms are a source of neighbourhood noise. A number of arrangements are in place to reduce the incidences of unnecessary noise from alarms and to tackle persistent incidence of such noise.

The National Standard Authority of Ireland, NSAI, published a voluntary standard specification, SI 199 of 1987, and operated a certification scheme to that standard. This specified a minimum 15 minutes' and maximum 30 minutes' duration from the sounding of external alarms in a building, with the alarms required to cease automatically after the maximum duration. A new European standard has now superseded this Irish standard.

This European standard for external intruder alarms has replaced all national standards and incorporates considerably stricter controls regarding minimum and maximum duration for the sounding of alarms. The new limits are 90 seconds minimum and 15 minutes maximum. This new standard has been applied by the NSAI for intruder alarms installed by certified installers since 1 March 2004.

In addition, the Private Securities Services Act 2004, now enacted, provides for a private security authority to licence, control and supervise installers of security equipment, including alarm systems and which has powers to maintain and improve standards in the provision of security services.

The recent European standard, improved equipment and the co-operation of the installers certified by the NSAI, will together be instrumental in ensuring that the incidence of false alarms and the failure of audible alarms to cut off will be significantly reduced.

A new European standard is being developed for alarm monitoring centres, including a code of practice detailing the circumstances when the Garda should be alerted. It is hoped that this standard will be in effect by the end of the year, and will ensure that the reporting of alarms to the Garda is carried out in a consistent manner.

The standards for car alarms are operated by car manufacturers and alarm installers and cover both installation during manufacture and retrospective fitting of alarms. The object of these standards, IEC 60839, is to ensure, among other things, a reduction in the numbers of false alarms.

Under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 (Noise) Regulations 1994, a local authority or any person may seek an order in the District Court to have noise that gives reasonable cause for annoyance abated. The procedures involved have been simplified to allow action to be taken without legal representation. A public information leaflet outlining the legal avenues available to persons experiencing noise nuisance is available from my Department or on www.environ.ie.

In light of the above, I have no proposals to introduce further legislation in relation to noise arising from house or car alarm systems.