{"id":119162,"date":"2025-11-03T10:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T10:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/119162\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T10:09:08","slug":"the-house-is-on-fire-please-answer-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/119162\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The house is on fire. Please answer\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three women say they and their children have been left traumatised by a suspected arson attack at an International Protection accommodation centre<\/a> in Drogheda<\/a>, Co Louth<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The women, who have been moved 12km away to the Mosney accommodation centre, on Sunday said they had hardly slept since the incident. <\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed<\/a> investigating the fire believe an accelerant was used<\/a> to start it shortly after 8pm. Four children and an adult were rescued from the top floor of the building on George\u2019s Street by firefighters, while 23 others were relocated to alternative accommodation.<\/p>\n

Some of the rescued children, including a 20-day-old and a 17-month-old, were taken to hospital for assessment.<\/p>\n

The women, who are from Nigeria and have lived in Drogheda for two years, asked not be photographed or to have their names published. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe building housing international protection applicants on George\u2019s Street Drogheda, Co\u00a0Louth. Photograph: Bryan O\u2019Brien \"AA mother holds her phone showing messages received from one of her children who was in the centre when the fire started. Photograph: Kitty Holland <\/p>\n

They said they could not understand how somebody would want to burn 28 people, including little children.<\/p>\n

One of the women, a mother of girls aged eight and 12, was at her job as a healthcare assistant at the time. She showed missed WhatsApp calls and messages from her older child from 8.11pm onwards pleading with her to answer. <\/p>\n

\u201cTHE HOUSE IS ON FIRE. PLEASE ANSWER,\u201d one message stated.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Security review of asylum seeker accommodation to be carried out \u2018speedily\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cI left everything and I just jumped into the road,\u201d the woman said. \u201cOne of the sisters drove me home. What I saw was some smoke. My children were trapped upstairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw my daughter . . . I wanted to climb the ladder to help her but the fire brigade people said \u2018No\u2019. They started bringing them out one by one. I was shouting. I was crying. I was thinking, \u2018If they die what will I say to the world?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman said they had been living there for two years, her children are doing well in school and she is working. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would someone want to murder us? We never cause trouble for anyone,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Another mother and resident, who works in a nursing home, had dropped her 17-year-old daughter to a friend\u2019s house and was resting in their ground-floor room when the fire alarm went off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ran to the kitchen. I met one of my neighbours and I said to her: \u2018Go and pick your son from your room\u2019. I checked the main door to the hall and when I open it [it] was full of smoke. I ran out to the back. A man called the fire service and they responded swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe damage caused by the fire in the building. Photograph: Bryan Meade <\/p>\n

The families were brought to a large house near Termonfeckin on Friday and moved to Mosney on Saturday. The campus is secure, with barriers at the entrance and a security hut. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis place is lovely, more secure. I want to stay somewhere more secure,\u201d the second woman said. <\/p>\n

Until Friday, she said, she had always felt secure in Ireland. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe never had any cause for concern, not until this happened. I have not slept since Friday,\u201d she said. \u201cI can\u2019t get it out of my head that they could have smashed our bedroom window, could have thrown something into our room.\u201d<\/p>\n

A third woman was with her three children \u2013 aged six, nine and 11, at church, when she was called and told of the fire at their home. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe children were crying, asking, \u2018Where are we going to sleep?\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

They cannot go back to their home to retrieve belongings. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey have no school uniform, no schoolbag, no shoes, no coat. So we have to wait,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three women say they and their children have been left traumatised by a suspected arson attack at an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,12210,42,1629,32652,9689,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-119162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-drogheda","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-immigration","12":"tag-international-protection-accommodation-services-ipas","13":"tag-louth","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119162","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=119162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}