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Home Security

How safe is your house? Sergeant sets up security exhibition to help

Sergeant Dean Kerins wants people to make sure that their homes are secure – so he is holding an exhibition in Meath.

A MEATH GARDA who set up a Facebook page to alert locals about crime is doing even more to help people keep their home or business safe.

Sergeant Dean Kerins is determined to show people that they can make their home secure, so he is to hold his second major home security exhibition in Meath this March.

The Home Security Exhibition will take place on 9 March 2013 in the Dunboyne Castle Hotel, Dunboyne, Co Meath, and there will be around 50 companies taking part, all with an aim of showing how people can keep their home and business safe.

Safety

The exhibition will cover all aspects of home security, with companies there dealing with alarms, CCTV monitoring, door and window specialists, electric gates, locksmiths, security items for the elderly, DNA marking for motorbikes, bicycle safety and security, and tracking systems.

Also at the event will be stands from:

The Meath Road Safety officer, victim assistance, Third Age, Muintire Na Tire, text alert advice, Knightsbrook Nursing Hotel, company security advisors, Garda Crime Prevention, defensive planting products, oil guard security, legal advice, citizen information and MABS, gardening services for the elderly, patio door locks, keysafes, security bars for doors and mobile cameras.

Entry to the exhibition is free, and any money raised will be donated to Aoibheann Pink Tie, an organisation based in Dunboyne that supports families who have children with cancer. The exhibition will be open to the public from 11am-6pm.

Sergeant Kerins told TheJournal.ie: “It’s their opportunity to ask any questions they might have with regard to home security. It’s their opportunity to see what products are on the market at the moment, and look at what services are out there for the elderly. These are experts in all these fields.”

It will open people’s minds or give them an idea of how they can upgrade their security and improve it without spending a lot of money on it.

Reassuring

It’s also about reassuring people, said Sgt Kerins, who said of people’s awareness of security:

Certainly in the last couple of years it has increased. People are more concerned about protecting valuables they have. The money to replace them is not there like it used to be. Now they are actually trying to find ways of improve their security. We ran a similar exhibition in 2011 and it was a phenomenal success.

Are people more concerned now because of the closure of garda stations? “It’s possible people will certainly think like that,” said Sgt Kerins, but pointed out that garda closures don’t mean less gardaí, and that gardaí are on patrol in areas. But security options can give people reassurance.

As for his Facebook page, which now has more than 4,500 ‘likes’, Kerin says that it has taken on a life of its own and given people the information they are craving about what is going on around the county.

Particularly different guards in different areas, they think it’s brilliant. A lot of community alert groups setting up their own Facebook pages and linking in with Meath Crime Prevention. It’s opening up another line of communication that they didn’t have before.

Read: Thousands ‘Like’ Garda’s crime-fighting Facebook page>

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