Do we have an emergency broadcast system in Ireland?

delta_bravo

Quick question.

I was over in Wisconsin this summer and listening to a bit of radio. Around midnight the station was interrupted by the state weather service to announce a storm was rolling in and expected in a few minutes. I scanned through the stations and it was on every station at the same time.

I know we probably don't have as much need for it in terms of weather but does that facility exist that a state organisation can take control of a broadcast remotely to send an emergency message?

Itssoeasy

I remember that booklet that was delivered to all homes a few years ago and it mentioned in the event of a emergency that warnings/advice would be broadcast on tv and radio.

I presume it would be on all the radio stations of the state.

666irishguy

If I remember correctly back to the time we got the iodine tablet in the post, I think you were to stay tuned to the national broadcaster (RTE) for information regarding any emergency and what action to take. Since RTE is state owned I imagine it would be act as the de-facto emergency broadcast system. I don't think they would have a remote ability to take over broadcasting or a need for it since they would be virtually next door to RTE HQ in Dublin, so getting the word to them would not be all that difficult to ensure it being broadcast throughout the country.

disc79

Yeah we have
Joe Duffy comes on with liveline

Trick of the Tail

A couple of years ago there was a sort-of plan, sort-of proposed and sort-of tested for emergency broadcasts over the independent stations.

It relied upon nothing more technological than getting the locals to rebroadcast RTE Radio 1.

It relied upon the indies nominating a member of staff who would be on call overnight, every night (not the same person every night, of course) who would be telephoned and told to go to the radio station and push up the 'Radio 1' fader.

The problem of course is that most stations don't have the ability to rbr another station off air. Then there's the problem of ensuring that the rota of available people is kept up to date and that person's phone is on, they're not away/drunk/etc.

In short, it relied totally on people, not technology.

There was even a test, which was declared by the BAI to have been a success, even though I was aware of at least 6 stations where things didn't work for one reason or another.

I proposed a technology-based, automated solution at the time, but since there was so much back-slapping going on, it was never pursued.

In the US it's called EAS - Emergency Activation System.

Here it should be HAES.

'Half-Arsed'.

A.

Kensington

Bit worrying, given that most stations are fully automated overnight.

Would there be anyway of using the INM and UTV radio feeds which many stations relay overnight to "take-over" stations in the event of an emergency?

Cookie Policy

This is interesting, recently purchased a new car and was flicking through the radio settings and came across the TA (Traffic Alerts) and there is another button for emergency broadcasts. Supposedly it switches the channel from what you're listening to the the one - giving the emergency broadcast and the Traffic Alerts also. Always wondered what that TA button next to Live Assist on RCS meant.

More Music

The test a few years ago used what was then the INN satellite distribution system for most local stations.

1) The test source was the Dail radio studio
2) That was fed to INN, RTE and Today FM/Newstalk
3) Each station nominated 3 or 4 people who knew how to open the station, turn off the automation and push up the emergency broadcast fader (INN news for most stations, which is already on the desk)
4) Somebody in the Dept. contacted the first person on the nominated list, or the second person etc. until they got through to somebody.
5) Garda escorts could be used if required (real life scenario)
6) A list of stations who didn't have INN was drawn up. The nearest and most technically reliable station was assigned as their off air feed. They had to arrange a tuner feed to their desk.

It was a non technical solution the required a very advanced life form to push up a fader. It worked from what I saw. If a station can't manage to put a feed on air then .......

It was a one off test and I think the whole thing is long forgotten. With the demise of INN and the lack of further testing/updating contact list it is well broken by now.

jrmb

A few years ago, I was listening to the radio in the wee hours when they conducted a test on every station in the country. They didn't mention emergencies as they seem to in the US. It was a more reserved "thirty-second engineering test".

IMHO, they should have at least one attendant in each radio station at all times as a licence requirement. Whatever about flicking the switch in the event of an emergency, most stations have very little regard for their overnight listeners. The playing out of every jingle on the palette for 2 minutes, the same library music at the same time every hour and crashing into news bulletins are incredibly common after midnight. It's very disheartening for the many people absolutely dying to get into the media.

jrmb

More Music wrote: »

It was a non technical solution the required a very advanced life form to push up a fader. It worked from what I saw. If a station can't manage to put a feed on air then .......

Would it be possible to send out an encoded message (only in the very rare event of a major occurence) for all stations/transmitters?

I believe this is done in the UK for independent stations. I've read that when the queen mother passed away about 10 years ago, poorly thought-out arrangements resulted in cheesy news beds obscuring the national anthem.

S28382

We had it in place for when Germany might have invaded us during WW2 but now its redundant as they are already here running our country ant not even a bullet shot or an emergency broadcast aired.....they just seemed to of appeared out of nowhere.

Feckin Germans.

leinsterjack

Well here is your answer lads...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkcT5SLMoyU

More Music

leinsterjack wrote: »

Well here is your answer lads...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkcT5SLMoyU

Not quite the same thing from a few years ago. This is a pre recorded announcement sent to radio stations to play out.

It’s not originating from a central studio in Dublin linked up to the local and national stations. Each station just plays out the announcement locally.

ford fiesta

RTE apparently have a designated studio among their donnybrook radio centre underground studios, on stand by for emergencies

ofcork

There was a banner came on the screen with the word test on rte last night assume it was related.

stevek93

ofcork wrote: »

There was a banner came on the screen with the word test on rte last night assume it was related.

Yes I also seen that. Did they broadcast a message?

Einstein A. Gogo

There's supposed to be an emergency alert plan for both TV and the network of local and national radio stations but last weekend shows it's not working because so many radio stations are on autopilot in the evenings and overnight so the alerts don't go through apart from during the standard news bulletins.

tom1ie

Anyone know did they ever get this sorted?

Might be an idea to have a working emergency system with all the talk of brownouts and blackouts 😝

rogue-entity

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2056754505/do-we-have-an-emergency-broadcast-system-in-ireland

Short answer, No. We never had the threat of nuclear war to spur the creation or adoption of the US-Style EAS (which is an automatic system) which covers radio and television stations as well as mobile phones (using Cell Broadcasts).

Under EU Directive 2018/1972 we were supposed to have implemented a similar system for covering mobile phones by the 21st of June 2022 but that hasn't happened and like fixing the clocks, I don't think it's going to happen this side of the decade.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119541222#Comment_119541222

Pointless. TV requires power and I doubt much of the population are listening to a radio at any given time. New Zealand have the right idea for emergencies, they send a txt to every phone in the country or to the phones in just specific areas, such as happened quite recently with tsunami warnings.

Sir Galahad

While in Switzerland I’ve got emergency broadcast texts to my phone. Can’t see why it couldn’t happen here.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119684228#Comment_119684228

I must have missed this reply!

I didn’t say it had to be tv or radio- text would be the way to go.

dxhound2005

Looking at the information for New Zealand and Switzerland, it seems that phones are not sold with the capability to receive these warnings. It is up to citizens to enable their own phone, probably for data protection reasons. There would be citizens who regard this sort of thing as Big Brother.

Maybe the Swiss have the best idea, not relying on people signing up, or even radio broadcasts. They have sirens all round the country which can be sounded in the case of emergencies.

tinytobe

DAB+ has the functionality that the radio can come alive from remote, if there is an emergency message. Provided that the radio has batteries or is connected to electricity.

I've seen and experienced this live as a test when in Germany.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrAXpiLRUGc

And then there are apps for smart phones in many countries for emergencies, - even better as they only inform on what's going on in the immediate vicinity.

To be quite honest, I think in this day and age the only way that an emergency broadcasting system could work is by SMS to mobiles. There's no guarantee that people would necessarily be listening to radio at all these days - things are moving very heavily to streaming, podcasting and their own music players, but EVERYONE has a mobile phone in their pocket.

Radio is useful, to a point. It's not what it was decades ago though and the mobile networks are a far more universally instantly visible service.

You could simply mandate that mobile carriers provide the infrastructure for it as part of their licences. It's not exactly complicated stuff and it's supported by the 3GPP (GSM, 4G, 5G etc) protocols.

You can send an emergency broadcast SMS out to a region or nationally without much fuss.

Given the likelihood of an emergency of that scale is so remote, you could probably just send them nationally. The criteria for sending one though would need to be quite tightly defined and the trigger point very high, otherwise you'd have people getting rather annoyed if there were regular national emergency SMS about ice on the road or a slight breeze.

You could also easily rollout a national emergency alert app. It's not exactly complicated to send out push notifications for all the more mundane warnings.

brettmirl

Hurricane Ophelia was the last time it was used as far as I know. This is from the Broadcasting Act 2009:

61.— (1) In this section “ network provider ” means a person providing or operating an electronic communications network which is used for the distribution, transmission or retransmission of broadcasting services to the public.

(2) During the continuance of any national emergency, the Minister may suspend any broadcasting licence or multiplex licence as defined in section 129 and, while any such suspension continues, the Minister may operate any service which was provided under the suspended licence or require such service to be operated as he or she directs.

(3) The Authority shall have the power to require broadcasting contractors and network providers to co-operate with the relevant public bodies in the dissemination of relevant information to the public in the event of a major emergency.

(4) If and whenever the Minister shall exercise the powers conferred on him or her by subsection (2) the broadcasting contractor or multiplex contractor shall be entitled to receive from the Minister, with the consent of the Minister for Finance—

(a) such sums as are required to defray any expenses which, regard being had to the nature of the emergency, have been properly and necessarily incurred by the broadcasting contractor or multiplex contractor and for meeting which revenue is by reason of the exercise of such powers not otherwise available to the broadcasting contractor or multiplex contractor, and

(b) compensation for any damage done to any property of the broadcasting contractor or multiplex contractor, being damage directly attributable to the exercise of such powers.

(5) At the request of the Minister, the Authority shall direct a broadcasting contractor to allocate broadcasting time for announcements for and on behalf of any Minister of the Government, in the event of a major emergency, in connection with the functions of that Minister of the Government. The broadcasting contractor shall comply with the direction.

(6) At the request of the Minister, the Authority shall direct a network provider, in a manner to be specified by the Authority, to carry broadcast announcements for and on behalf of any Minister of the Government, in the event of a major emergency, in connection with the functions of that Minister of the Government. The network provider shall comply with the direction.

(7) In complying with a direction under subsection (5) or (6) a broadcasting contractor or network provider may broadcast an announcement that it has received such a direction from the Authority.

Pretty sure I got an "amber alert" or Child Rescue Alert on my phone before a number of years back from the Gardai:

https://www.garda.ie/en/about-us/publications/policy-documents/child-rescue-ireland-cri-alert-policy-document.pdf

Splish Splash

I was in Canada last year and we received national alerts on our mobiles with a very distinctive klaxon tone - extremely effective. I don't think radio is relevent these days as few people listen to any one broadcaster regularly.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119541222#Comment_119541222

From the old Irish TV website:

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120071918#Comment_120071918

but EVERYONE has a mobile phone in their pocket.

No, they don't. And even those who do don't always have a signal, or don't have their phone to hand, or switched on, or charged up ...

zg3409

Most mobile phone masts have no backup power so as soon as the power goes all signal in the area goes dead.

I suspect this feature is available on phone networks and phones, just no one is using it.

One of the reasons saorview rv is broadcast over terrestrial (even though not many people use it) is that sky and other networks are not Irish controlled and there is a risk of having no national TV broadcasts in event of an incident. Most TV sites have backup generators along with main radio sites. Mobile phone sites do not, but It agree messages to phones are more likely to reach more people.

Ger Roe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120073120#Comment_120073120

Moblie phone might reach more people... as a first option.. providing the complex cell network stands up. It depends on how severe your emergency is.

The reason why a fail-safe emergency system might still use radio.... is when all else fails (in a total emergency/disaster situation) radio still has the potential to communicate a message to a mass audience, with relative technical ease (established well maintained networks with local site power backup). Even in a total radio network failure situation, regional/local transmitters could be set up easily.

On TV and in films when people realise that their phones and internet access are dead and the zombies or aliens are attacking... they usually revert to radio to find out what is happening in the world. Here in north east wicklow, there have been times when I could not get a mobile phone connection along the N11 due to a heavy snowfall or a major accident (too much line seize demand with people calling out to update on the their situation), the radio in the car still worked though. During the 9/11 attacks, the mobile phone networks were severely disrupted in New York (either by damage or demand), but the radio stations kept operating, some by re-locating to temp studio or transmitter sites, as required (some of the bigger stations had transmission sites on the towers).

Having said that... and having been involved in a test of the national radio alert system here in the mid 2000's... it has never been properly planned or resourced in this country, so as to be a reliable option.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120072409#Comment_120072409

There is no functional system not was there one during Ophelia.

The system, as was (it was nearly entirely manual), relied on INN. INN are gone since 2009. Nothing has replaced it.

The Newstalk network distribution, which most stations do take, has (and uses) the ability to send an out of band signal that they are about to broadcast; but nobody has this set up to be able to take full control of output. And nobody would, as it would be incredibly dangerous - one finger slip taking every station off air!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120072717#Comment_120072717

To be fair, they do ... It's not 1995 and most people are available by mobile pretty much all the time and an SMS requires no data connection speed at all. Even a brief connection to an network will pick it up.

Mobile phone penetration is over 100% of the population and also includes all visitors to the country. It's at this stage an extreme exception not to have a mobile. Even most 90 year olds can manage it.

Also if a mass alert text message, like I donno .. incoming hurricane .. goes out to the entire population, you'll hear about it as the majority of the the people around you will have read it.

At this stage it's far more likely someone will be listening to Spotify or podcasts and not notice something on Radio 1 than it is that they'd not see a text alert.

If we were in a situation like Ukraine where there was a possibility of direct attacks on infrastructure, you'd probably want multiple AM stations and links to neighbouring states to carry message, but even there the mobile infrastructure has proven to be relatively resilient and also has bee able to be rolled out using temporary towers / towers on trucks and microwave links.

In something like an attack on the country (HIGHLY unlikely to ever occur), a centralised single radio mast is very likely to be targeted with a missile anyway.

In a modern war situation it's probably a lot easier to take out a handful of large radio transmitters with targeted missiles than it would be to take out a complex mesh of a mobile network with thousands of sites.

In my view an emergency alert system here would be far more useful if it were an opt in app type system for localised / types of useful information.

What would worry me a bit is the way you've seen Met Éireann colour alerts being perhaps a bit over done, particularly the yellow and orange ones. So, it could get a bit irritating if there were endless yellow alerts for ice or something unless you'd opted into getting those specifically.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have an emergency alert mechanism for broadcast radio, but it just seems like it's no longer the primary way to reach the widest number of people in the modern era.

What we should be doing though is hardening the mobile networks with adequate battery back up and all of that stuff.

CelticRambler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120075760#Comment_120075760

To be fair, they do ... It's not 1995 and most people are available by mobile pretty much all the time and an SMS requires no data connection speed at all. Even a brief connection to an network will pick it up. 

Mobile phone penetration is over 100% of the population and also includes all visitors to the country. 

That's the kind of assumption that leads to bad system design. It's not just a question of whether or not you own a mobile phone, but also whether or not that phone is located in an area of coverage and whether the owner can/will see any message. I can tell you from first-hand experience that there is zero mobile coverage for any network in my sister's house. She lives in Dublin 16. Whenever we have a family event, it's only in the car on the way home, when we pass a particular roundabout that the phones of everyone in the car suddenly start pinging and chirping.

Similarly, I own a mobile (two, in fact so statistically I'm contributing to your "over 100%) but it does not play an important part in my daily life and regularly finds itself lost. The super-strong 4G signal is of no use from an emergency alert point of view, if I left the phone in the shed three days ago and haven't seen it since. I'm by no means unique in this regard - there are plenty of us for whom a mobile phone is a useful gadget, but not indispensible (and maybe not even desireable) in our daily lives.

One could apply the same logic to radio and TV broadcasts, to social media, or to any other form of mass messaging. Chances are a significant section of the population will not be consumers of one or more of those channels, so planning an emergency broadcast around a single point is a seriously flawed strategy. Furthermore, however effective sending a single text message to the population might be, for the reasons given by @Ger Roe the mobile phone network is one of the most vulnerable in the case of any on-going emergency.

I know of at least 3 households where there is no working FM or AM radio anymore. They don't listen to any radio other than maybe isn the car. I don't think our kitchen radio even works anymore.

There is quite literally universal penetration of mobile phones and all of them are capable of SMS reception and the vast majority are smartphones at this stage too. Ireland has universal mobile penetration. It's the only technology that you could regard as absolutely ubiquitous for communication. Not apps, not specific radio stations. An SMS sent as a broadcast will pop up on every device.

The arguments about phones being off or uncharged is exactly the same as the arguments for radios or TVs being off or not functioning. Radios aren't switched on to alert you of in coming messages either in normal circumstances and DAB+ is not going to happen here from what I can see, so that approach is rather irrelevant. Mobiles however will receive an SMS and alert you if they're on at all. You don't have to be actively listening to them.

You also have a growing population of people who may not speak English or Irish as their 1st language and may listen to very little Irish radio.

I would include the deaf community in that btw. There's a not insignificant number of people who audio broadcasts would be rather meaningless to.

If you've no signal in your house in suburban Dublin, that's more of a building materials issue than a lack of infrastructure though.

My argument is that if you want to have an emergency broadcasting system, in the modern era that starts with mobile SMS and uses radio as a passive backup. Non urgent warnings could be handled by an app, if there was a will to build one. It could even have things like an ability to locate yourself more easily to 112/999 or communicate in text form or even send images.

I wouldn't see any point in putting major money into physically building out any kind of EMB infrastructure for FM radio, beyond just coordinating with the broadcasters.

dxhound2005

We haven't had a big tsunami in Ireland since 1755, but in countries which do, I would vote for a system of sirens as well as radio and phones. Hard to ignore a siren like this. And these days people would turn to their phones or radios for more information after they had the good sense to run for the hills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxuVHwyg6aw

And of course in Ukraine today, nobody should depend on anything other than the good old air raid siren to be told when to head for the underground shelters.

The needs for an emergency broadcasting system in Ireland are relatively limited due to lack of extreme weather, seismic activities or likely military threats.

Really the only context we have for all out warnings are the very occasional extreme atlantic storm. Apart from that, most things come down to what amounts to weather updates that are handled by Met Éireann anyway.

If a cheap and cheerful app with push notifications were available for the non-emergency civil alerts / bad weather alerts etc it might be somewhat useful.

thesandeman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120076607#Comment_120076607

Not an app, but MapAlerter does a lot of the above. You can sign up for SMS alerts for your area as well as emails.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120075760#Comment_120075760

What happens in the event of a blackout and the cell towers go down?

No backup generators on each tower.

brettmirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120075670#Comment_120075670

https://www.thejournal.ie/emergency-broadcast-system-3652284-Oct2017/

far from an idea system, and not in line with a lot of other country’s systems but better than nothing.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077887#Comment_120077887

That was 100% manual intervention by each broadcaster.

An actual system would not need manual intervention.

Ger Roe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120078056#Comment_120078056

Correct, it was totally manual with far too many steps, each prone to potential failure.

When 'the system' was tested for radio in 2008, each station had to designate some contact names and numbers, to be called in priority order. As far as I remember, the first person who answered the call and accepted the mission, then had an hour to get to the station and slide up a fader from the INN satellite feed, which was playing out an audio tone. No on air announcement about emergency tests was to be made made and there was no actual message broadcast, no explanation was to be given, beyond 'an engineering test' (if anyone asked). The tone signal originated from the media studio in Leinster House and it had to be relayed for a specified minimum time. The call to action went out one day in the late night/early morning hours and BAI staff monitored each station to ensure compliance.

I was going to nominate myself as a designated contact, but I lived outside the station franchise area and I might not have been able to make it to the studio at the time. I contacted the BAI and asked if the nominated contacts could be given an official ID/authorisation document to present to any Garda that might stop them while wandering about Dublin city in the wee hours on their 'national emergency' mission, but they did not reply to me. I pointed out that in the event of a real emergency, there might be roadblocks and restricted movement checkpoints that would have to be dealt with by the appointed fader slider uppers. Our duly activated station nominee actually lived relatively near to the studio and got out of bed to cycle in and push up the fader ..... very high tech.

It was all kept very quiet and nothing more was communicated to the stations as to how effective it was, or what it would mean going forward. Eamonn Ryan was Minister for Comms at the time and he did announce how apparently successful it was. As has been mentioned, INN closed shortly after so the distribution method used, even one so manually dependent, was then no longer available.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30390733.html

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120077686#Comment_120077686

There’s 30 - 60 mins of battery on most of them and the core sites have contingencies like generators.

The same issues apply to the VDSL landline, very small telephone exchanges (remote units in cabinets) and services over cable broadband btw. They’re battery backed up in the cabinets. The pure fibre networks are passive optical networks, so have very few power issues, once you’ve a battery back up in your house. If you’re somewhere rural you really should have a UPS to keep your router alive in an outage.

There are risks to many small FM and UHF relays btw in a prolonged blackout. A short one wouldn’t bother most infrastructure. Anything going on for more than a few hours might.

I would advocate the state should mandate the maintenance of a single AM station, probably carrying RTE R1 as an absolute backup. Not sure about Long Wave though. It’s not widely supported by enough basic radios. They still have masts, just putting a small amount of defence funding into it would be a sensible precaution in the event of an absolute disaster. It’s highly, highly unlikely to be needed ever, but it does seem like a civil defence oriented simple AM system might not be a terrible idea.

The mobile and landline networks should be assessed for storm and blackout protection though. Seems like a sensible precaution.

There’s also nothing wrong with a manual broadcast protocol - with a known way of contacting the local radio newsrooms. It doesn’t have to be anything horrendously complex - for example a central emergency office calling them with a known landline and mobile number and dispatching info over the syndicated news feed networks.

brettmirl

This is from 2018 - an EU wide "Reverse 911"

https://twitter.com/EUCouncil/status/1061965932325675012

Never heard anything about it ever since.

saabsaab

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/80792587#Comment_80792587

No it's the Greeks that started it.

The Continental Op

Long wave is the way to do it but as has already been mentioned a lot of households don't have a radio anymore let alone one that receives Long Wave. Plus of course RTE would love to stop Long Wave transmissions.