Council charged over deaths of firemen

WICKLOW COUNTY Council was the defendant yesterday facing charges in connection with the deaths of two firemen in a blaze at …

WICKLOW COUNTY Council was the defendant yesterday facing charges in connection with the deaths of two firemen in a blaze at a disused factory in Bray almost four years ago.

Mark O’Shaughnessy (25) and Brian Murray (46) were killed after a roof collapsed on them as they battled the fire at a building at Adelaide Villas in Bray, Co Wicklow, in September 2007.

Yesterday, at Bray District Court, Wicklow County Council, as a corporate entity, was charged with four offences under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.

The case was adjourned after the Director of Public Prosecutions requested time to prepare the book of evidence.

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Solicitors from Patrick Cahill Solicitors, for Wicklow County Council, agreed to the adjournment. Judge Murrough Connellan told a packed courtroom that the case would be listed again on October 11th and adjourned the matter for the preparation of the book of evidence.

In court for the brief hearing were Mary Murray – the wife of the late Brian Murray – and some of the couple’s 15 children.

Hazel O’Brien, partner of the late Mark O’Shaughnessy, also attended, as did his brother Éamon.

Tom Murphy, from the council’s corporate affairs division, represented the local authority at the hearing.

The council is to be charged with four offences under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005.

The charges against the local authority claim that between September 2005 and 2007 it failed to discharge its duty to ensure the “safety, health and welfare at work” of its “firefighter employees operating from Bray fire station in the extinguishing of fires”.

No effective system of control and communication was established or co-ordinated by the council, the charges add, “ . . . as a result of which Brian Murray and Mark O’Shaughnessy suffered personal injury”.

The summonses also allege that the council “did not provide a system of work which laid down clear rules of engagement for structural fire fighting” and claim that clear instructions were not given to firemen “not to commit” to “offensive” firefighting operations in “abandoned or derelict buildings”.

Further charges claim the council did not provide a system that allowed firemen to request a back-up fire tender “within a reasonable period” of time, of failing to review its own safety standards and of not giving proper training to firemen in the use of certain specialised equipment.