Irish Galaxy Note 7 owners- turn off your phone now!

Samsung has a serious problem with their new Galaxy Note 7- mostly because the handset has been known to go on fire.

This has happened in 35 cases to date, usually when the phone is charging, and caused the company to instigate an unprecedented recall of up to 2.5 million units which may contain the faulty batteries that sometimes ignite.

That process is huge and daunting and is probably going to take a good while to complete, but in the meantime Samsung is urging users to turn off their Note 7 phones and stop using them entirely. Here's the info from Samsung Europe:

"There have been a small number of cases reported globally and we are currently conducting a thorough inspection with our suppliers to identify possible affected batteries in the market. However, because our customers’ safety is an absolute priority at Samsung, we have stopped sales of the Galaxy Note7.

For customers who already have Galaxy Note7 devices, we now ask that you power down your device and return to using your previous phone. We will voluntarily replace your Galaxy Note7 device with a new one, beginning on September 19th. For more details on what to do next please see below.

We acknowledge the inconvenience this may cause in the market but this is to ensure that Samsung continues to deliver the highest quality products to our customers. We are working closely with our partners to ensure the replacement experience is as convenient and efficient as possible."

The message from the company is clear- these handsets could still be dangerous and they don't want anyone else to get hurt. A program is being put into place to offer replacement phones to those who are effected by the issue but it's not know how widespread that will be.

Irish customers will be contacted by their provider or operator soon for details on how to arrange delivery of their new handset, if you have further questions call 01-6950367.

It's going to be a major hassle for everyone involved to get this issue sorted, as the phones will have to be returned to Samsung while new units are being manufactured and mailed out. In some countries users are being offered gift cards by way of an apology but it's hard to know the long term effect this could have on the Korean tech giant.