Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 October 2020
14. Deputy Cian O'Callaghan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will investigate the safety of window restrictors, which are difficult to open, to ensure they comply with standards under the scope of his Department (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29878/20]
View answerAs my colleague, the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, stated in the answer to Parliamentary Question No. 872 of 30 June 2020, window restrictors are products that are required to be installed in dwellings where a window has an opening section through which a person may fall, (having particular regard to children under five years of age), and is more than 1400 mm above external ground level. Where such window restrictions are an integral part of the window operating gear they come under the remit of the Construction Products Regulation (Regulation (EU) No 305/2011) and fall under the responsibility of my colleague’s Department.
With regard to window restrictors that are sold as separate items, which are not covered by EU harmonised standards, these products fall under the remit of the General Product Safety Directive (Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 December 2001 on General Product Safety) which was transposed into Irish law by S.I. No. 199 of 2004 and thus come within the responsibility of my Department.
The Standard EN 13126-5 “Building hardware - Hardware for windows and door height windows - Requirements and test methods - Part 5: Devices that restrict the opening of windows and door height windows”, is not a harmonised EN cited in the Official Journal of the EU and therefore the appropriate legislation dealing with these products is Directive 2001/95/EC.
Directive 2001/95/EC places the onus on all economic operators – manufacturers, distributors, importers – to ensure that only safe products are placed on the market. If economic operators become aware that products on the market present a potential hazard, they must take appropriate measures, up to and including recall of the items, to ensure that the risk is removed. Any action taken by an operator must be notified to the relevant Market Surveillance Authority: in Ireland this is the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), which is statutorily independent in the carrying out of its functions.
Where the CCPC finds unsafe products on the Irish market, it will act to ensure economic operators remove the product from the market until it is in compliance with the legislation. The CCPC is part of an EU wide network (known as Safety Gate) that allows for the rapid exchange of information between national market surveillance authorities on dangerous products found on the EU market.
Section 9 (5) of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014 provides that the CCPC is independent in the performance of its functions, including carrying out investigations of unsafe products. As investigations and enforcement matters generally are part of the day-to-day operational work of the CCPC, I, as the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment have no direct function in the matter.
Should the Deputy have any information in relation to unsafe window restrictors on the Irish market, he should make contact with the CCPC directly to provide any relevant information on these matters.
