Four children, including a baby, have been taken to hospital after fireworks were thrown into a building housing people applying for international protection.<\/p>\n
It happened in Drogheda, County Louth, on Friday night. <\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed (Irish police) were alerted by the fire service to a blaze at the property at about 20:15 local time. The fire has since been extinguished. <\/p>\n
An adult was also taken to hospital.<\/p>\n
Ireland’s Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan described the incident as “a terrifying ordeal for the women and children living there”.<\/p>\n
“Fireworks were thrown into the building, causing a fire and putting lives at risk,” he said. <\/p>\n
He said alternative accommodation is now being sourced for the residents affected. <\/p>\n
“There will be serious consequences for those responsible,” he added.<\/p>\n
Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Mich\u00e9al Martin has condemned “in the strongest terms, the deeply disturbing incident”. <\/p>\n
“To put vulnerable families, including young children, at risk is abhorrent and has no place in our society,” Martin said. <\/p>\n
“Our thoughts are with those affected by this horrifying experience.”<\/p>\n
A Garda statement said: “This was an extremely dangerous act endangering the lives of the residents, including children, who were in their home at the time.”<\/p>\n
The scene has been technically examined and a senior investigating officer is leading the investigation from an incident room at Drogheda Garda Station.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed have appealed for information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four children, including a baby, have been taken to hospital after fireworks were thrown into a building housing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117151,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-117150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}