A nine-year-old boy died when a 45-gallon barrel containing wood preservative exploded at a building site, engulfing him in flames, Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday.
Cork developers, O'Flynn Construction Ltd, were fined €200,000 after they pleaded guilty to two counts of breaching the Health and Safety Act arising out of the death of Stephen Long of Broadale, Maryborough Hill, Douglas, in the city. Stephen was one of a group of youngsters who entered the Mount Oval site in Rochestown, Cork, after 6 p.m. on September 9th, 2001.
One of the children had lit a bonfire. The barrel was next to it, and it exploded, setting the boy's clothes alight. He was rushed to Cork University Hospital where he died from burn injuries the following morning.
The breaches of the Health and Safety Act included failing to provide adequate fencing around the perimeters of the site and failing to ensure that members of the public were not exposed to risk in relation to the construction area.
Health and Safety Authority inspector, Mr Alan Costello, said the company had no previous convictions for similar offences. There was not one direct cause of the accident. However, he cited as contributing factors the absence of daytime security at the site during weekends and the lack of a proper procedure for securing hazardous materials.
Defence counsel Mr Jim O'Mahony said the company accepted that the barrel of wood preservative should have been stored in a secure compound. However, he argued that construction companies were as a whole unable to prevent children from entering sites.
"Preventing unlawful entry is all but impossible. Even if the fencing was as it is now it wouldn't have prevented children from getting on the site. They [the company] genuinely felt the fencing arrangements with regard to access were appropriate and reasonable. I don't think it could be suggested that my clients ignored the law."
Director of O'Flynn Construction Ltd, Mr Michael Kelleher, said the company received no reports of children entering the site before the tragedy.
Counsel for the State, Mr Donal McCarthy, said a company of O'Flynn's standing should have realised that children were at risk on the site. He added the firm seemed to rely totally on the directions of the HSA in relation to safety matters rather than drawing on their experience of over 25 years in operation.
Judge Patrick J. Moran said he found it difficult to accept that the company had not received complaints about children playing in and around the site before Stephen Long's death. "They must have been aware that children would go on to the site. Children are always curious. It is a tragic case with terrible results for the parents of Stephen Long." He fined the company €200,000 and declined leave to appeal in the case.