Irish Examiner view: Touch of retro with text alert system 

Emergency text alert system will be rolled out in Ireland next year

Ireland will roll out its own emergency text alert system next year.

There’s more than a touch of the retro in Britain’s plans to transmit a nationwide emergency signal over its mobile phone network between 3pm and 4pm tomorrow.

While the siren will not be received on Irish networks, customers near border areas who roam onto a British provider will hear the sound, feel their phones vibrate and see a message on their home screen to prompt their acknowledgment.

Ireland will roll out its own emergency text alert system next year but for now, we can be interested observers in a service designed to be used in a life-threatening emergency.

The example quoted is an extreme weather event but readers with older memories may remember the British issuing booklets as part of a six-year civil defence campaign called Protect and Survive designed to advise families how to cope with a nuclear attack. 

A series of short films was also made.

Critics have asked why the system is being introduced now and why, also, the project has been given to Fujitsu, the equipment provider in the scandal which saw dozens of sub-postmasters wrongly accused of fraud.

But the biggest challenge facing the British government is to dissuade people from adjusting their phone settings... and switching the alert off. Which is another way of keeping calm.