It is 2.40 on a Sunday morning and the alarm at your premises has activated. What happens next depends on three things: what kind of alarm you have, who your key holders are, and whether any of them answers the phone.

Bell-only or monitored?

A bell-only alarm makes noise and nothing else. It relies on somebody nearby hearing it and caring enough to do something. On an industrial estate at night, that is nobody.

A monitored alarm sends a signal to an alarm monitoring centre. An operator there sees the activation and starts phoning the key holders on your list. Depending on the signal, they may also notify the Gardaí.

When do the Gardaí respond?

An Garda Síochána has a published policy on monitored intruder alarms. In summary:

  • Gardaí respond to personal attack (panic) alarms.
  • For commercial intruder alarms, Gardaí respond to verified activations. An alarm is verified when a second detector confirms the first, or when the monitoring centre can confirm an intrusion by camera or audio.
  • A single unverified activation at a commercial premises is not passed to the Gardaí for response. The monitoring centre contacts the key holder instead.
  • The alarm system and the monitoring centre must meet the relevant standards for the policy to apply.

Your alarm company can tell you whether your system is monitored and whether it is set up to produce verified activations. If you do not know, it is worth a phone call.

Why false alarms matter

Most activations are false: a door not closed properly, a staff member who forgot the code, a detector that needs replacing. The Garda policy takes them seriously. Three false alarms in a three-month period can lead to Garda response being withdrawn from the system until the problem has been fixed and a period has passed without further false calls.

To keep false alarms down:

  • have the system serviced regularly by a licensed installer;
  • make sure everybody who opens or closes knows the code and the procedure;
  • fix faulty doors, windows and detectors promptly;
  • tell your monitoring centre before any work that might set the alarm off.

The key holder is the weak point

Gardaí cannot check a building properly until somebody lets them in. The policy expects a key holder to attend, and says monitoring centres should hold a list of key holders who can be there within about 30 minutes. If a key holder fails to attend a verified activation, it is recorded as a false alarm and counts against the system.

In practice, key holder lists are often out of date. People change phone numbers, leave the company, go on holidays or live an hour away. And there is a harder question: should a member of your staff be going alone into a building at night where there may be an intruder? As an employer you have a duty of care to them.

What a key holding and alarm response service does

With key holding, a security company holds your keys and becomes your first key holder. When the alarm activates:

  1. the monitoring centre phones the security company's control room;
  2. a licensed officer travels to the premises with your keys;
  3. the officer checks the outside, then the inside if it is safe;
  4. if there has been a break-in, the officer calls the Gardaí, meets them and stays until the building is secured;
  5. if it is a false alarm, the officer resets the system and locks up;
  6. you receive a report in the morning instead of a phone call in the night.

That is the whole of what alarm response means. It does not replace the Gardaí. It makes sure that somebody capable always turns up, and that nobody on your payroll has to.

A quick check for your own premises

  • Is the alarm monitored, and by whom?
  • Does it give verified activations?
  • Who is on the key holder list, and when was it last updated?
  • Could each of those people reach the premises within half an hour, at any hour?
  • How many false alarms have there been in the last three months?

If you are not happy with the answers, talk to us about key holding and alarm response for your premises.