After a burglary in Cork City resulted in a large amount of cash stolen, An Garda Síochána (Irish Police) and Cork Business Association highlight the need for both business and homeowners to check their safes and ensure that they are in possession of a certified “Safe” (EN1143-1) and not a "Secure Safe Cabinet" (EN14450), a unit that has no rating for insurance cover in the Republic of Ireland.

An Garda Siochana also highlight the importance of ensuring that any certification plate that appears on a home or business safe is from a European body accredited to ISO/IEC17065 to certify burglary resistance. This will usually be indicated on the unit’s certification plate.

LPCB - The Loss Prevention Certification Board (UK) is not and has never been accredited to certify safes (according to UKAS) although such units have been heavily marketed, particularly in the Cork area, as having an equivalence to accredited European certification. If you consider that 70% of safes that are tested by accredited European testing labs fail on the first attempt, the implication of an unaccredited "certification" plate that claims to comply with European standards is obvious.

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Garda Advice on Specifications for Safes

 For advice call: +353 1 7076011

Certified Safes Ireland™ in-house advisor on keeping jewellery, watch collections, goods, cash, documents and data, safe, secure, yet readily accessible, is Alan Donohoe Redd.

Alan Donohoe Redd is a member of the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) Working Group responsible for writing European Standards for safes, strongrooms (vaults), secure cabinets and physical data protection for the European Union and a member of the U.S. Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Standards Technical Panel TC72 covering standards for fire resistance of record protection devices. Alan is also a registered NATO supplier and a longstanding member of the European Security Systems Association. Alan has a vast range of experience spanning almost 40 years encompassing installation of safes, strongrooms, physical data protection, CCTV, alarms, access control, secure storage control systems and Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) specification, design and installation. 

An expert on standards and fraud issues related to secure storage in Europe, the UK and the use of asbestos in European safe and cabinet manufacturing, Alan has had articles related to these subjects published by The Law Society Gazette and Irish Broker Magazine, has forced retractions of multiple false claims related to secure storage offerings to the public and has been pivotal in having misleading standards and practices recognised and withdrawn in Ireland, the UK and at a European level.

Alan's seminars on safes, strongrooms and high net worth secure storage have been part of Continuing Professional Development for underwriters and insurers having been awarded CPD points by the Insurance Institute of Ireland and the Chartered Insurance Institute (UK).

 Alan's expertise has been relied on by:

N.A.T.O. Europe, The U.S. Air Force (Europe), The National Treasury Management Agency (Ireland), The Department Of Communications (NCSC Cyber Security) (Ireland), The Revenue Commissioners, Electricity Supply Board (Cyber Security) (Ireland), The Danish Defence Forces (Afghanistan), PayPal (Worldwide), Grant Thornton, The Insurance Institute of Ireland, The Royal College Of Surgeons, BFC Bank, Interxion Data Centres, The Private Security Authority, Isle of Man Gold Bullion, Brown Thomas, Bvlgari, Boodles, Druids Glen, The Shelbourne Hotel, and many others ....