About Us
“No child should die like Arran” (Irish Examiner)
Certainly no child should die or be injured by a window blind.
The purpose of this website is to educate and inform you the consumer on what you can do to prevent injury or death through window blinds.
The idea to set up this website came about through my conversations with Arran’s father, Shane Malley. I have come across some websites covering window blind child safety but none of them, in my opinion, were comprehensive with very little practical information available.
With over 25 years experience in the window blind industry in Cork, I felt I could provide a better website for the consumer. I have designed windowblindsafety.ie in a personal capacity with Shane.
We have approached this website from two sides, the first being advice for those of you who have existing blinds which you wish to make safe and the second being advice on purchasing new blinds. There are plenty of photographs on this site which are self explanatory and language is kept as simple as possible. We have attempted to cover the most popular blinds available in this country. However, if you have a product which we haven’t covered we will be happy to provide advice for you and include your blind on our website.
We hope the information included in this website is of help to you. If it can prevent such tragedies from occurring again we will be very happy.
This website is dedicated to Arran Malley.
Since this website has gone live on the web I was invited to participate in a voluntary capacity in the European Committee for Standardization. I am a member of WG3/TG3 which is charged with the responsibility of revising the current EU standard for internal window blinds, EN13120. The last time this standard was revised was 2009 but it was felt that the child safety element of this standard could be vastly improved.
On a national level, I have been appointed as chairperson of the NSAI Committee on Internal Window Blind Safety. The ultimate goal of this committee has been to draft an industry code of good practice. This will be supplementary to the revised EN13120.
It will give guidance for the manufacture and installation of all types of blinds and window coverings, with particular emphasis on safety. The code will also give guidance on a curricula for training those that manufacture, measure and install window blinds.
I have also designed a new consumer safety leaflet which I hope will be distributed to schools from September 2011. Portions of this you will see in the News section of this website and on the Facebook page.
Hopefully with tougher standards for the industry and greater public awareness we can save some more lives.
Aaron O’Connell
