Section 18(2) of the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003 puts a duty on the person having control of a premises. This is a free walkthrough of the routine checks and records that show it is being discharged.
Read this before you start.
Food Safe Ireland is a private training company. We are not a food authority, we are not part of the State, and nothing you do in a guide is approved or certified by anyone. The checks, the records and the fire safety measures on your premises are yours to run and yours to be responsible for.
The guides are guidance, not advice, and they are unsupported. We cannot review your documents, complete an application for you, or advise on your particular premises. Everything you need to do it yourself is in the steps — but the doing is yours.
If you want that kind of help it belongs in a paid service rather than a free guide. Email [email protected] and we will tell you what is available.
A fire safety certificate is a statutory approval about the building. A fire risk assessment is work done on your premises by a competent person. This guide is the third thing: the ongoing checks that show the measures are maintained.
A certificate is obtained once and an assessment is done periodically. The checks run every week, forever, and they are what a fire officer asks for first.
Wedged fire doors and blocked escape routes come up again and again. Both cost nothing and both are caught by a short daily walk-round.
A year of weekly tests fits on one page. Signed as you go, that page is evidence. Reconstructed from memory, it is not.
Sources ·
gov.ie — Local authorities
General guidance, not legal advice, and not supported. Your own system, and the officer inspecting your premises, are what govern your business.
Every step closes with a tick-list of what you should actually have. Where the next move is outside the guide, it tells you and links you straight there.
The person having control, the landlord/tenant split, and what this guide is not.
You finish the step holding:
The opening walk-round and the weekly alarm test, signed as you go.
You finish the step holding:
Extinguishers, emergency lighting and fire doors, logged where they can be found.
You finish the step holding:
One log for every service cycle, and recommendations closed out.
You finish the step holding:
What went wrong, what you changed, and who is trained for the roles that matter.
You finish the step holding:
One place a person can put their hand on all of it, and a trigger for review.
You finish the step holding:
No, and the distinction matters. A fire risk assessment is carried out on your premises by a competent person. A fire safety certificate is a statutory approval relating to the building. This guide covers the third thing — the ongoing checks and records that show the measures those documents describe are being maintained. You need all three.
Weekly is the widely used interval in Ireland, testing a different call point each week so the whole system gets exercised. Your alarm system's own documentation and your service contractor set the definitive schedule for your building — not us.
Your local authority fire service. The guide links you to the list so you can find yours.
Not on a free guide. These are unsupported. The Fire Safety Register Pack has the sheets ready-made, and [email protected] can tell you what paid help exists.
The guide stands on its own. These are what people tend to need once they have worked through it — and they are how we make a living, which is why the guide can be free.
Five free guides, all step by step, all yours to work through at your own pace.
Free · 6 steps · work at your own pace.
Guidance only, and unsupported — the doing is yours.