'You could have had another Carrickmines': Blaze raises safety concerns at Cork city halting site 

It was only “the mercy of God” that prevented lives from being lost after a fire broke out in a notorious Cork city halting site, one resident has told The Echo.

The blaze, which has left a family homeless, began in an unoccupied caravan at the overcrowded Spring Lane site in Ballyvolane in the early hours of Thursday, September 17.

It quickly spread to the neighbouring bay, gutting the home of a family of five and damaging another caravan, which is home to a family of seven.

One neighbour, who declined to be named, said: “It was only the mercy of God that it happened early enough, about 12.30am, because if it was later, you could have had another Carrickmines”.

In the early hours of Saturday, October 10, 2015, a fire tore through a halting site in Carrickmines, Co Dublin, killing 11 people, including an unborn child.

At the time, books of condolence were opened across the country and the then taoiseach, Enda Kenny, ordered that the national flag be flown at half-mast.

Spring Lane was originally a quarry before it was turned into a 10-bay halting site in 1989.

Shocking conditions

In 2021, the Ombudsman for Children’s Office castigated the council for what it deemed to be “shocking” and “deplorable” conditions for children living at Spring Lane

In a damning report, the OCO found that about 140 people were living in filthy, overcrowded, rat-infested, and unsafe conditions where raw sewage was visible.

Since then, numbers on the site have increased. Yesterday sewage was visible on the ground and its smell pervasive in the air.

Two years ago, the council drew up plans for an €18m regeneration of the site, including the redevelopment of the halting site and the construction of a new purpose-built group housing scheme in the adjacent Ellis Yard.

In August, following a violent incident at the site in which two men were treated for gunshot wounds, a council spokesperson said the scheme had received Part 8 planning approval, and the works to go to tender “in the coming weeks”.

Yesterday, the burnt-out home that was the site of the blaze remained in Bay 10, and in the neighbouring Bay Nine, a gutted caravan stood beside a home which has suffered burn and smoke damage.

One man in his 30s, who lives in the damaged caravan with his family, which includes five children under the age of 13, claimed he had “got nowhere” in asking the council to move them since the fire.

Sleeping in a car

He said his sister had lived in the burnt-out caravan with her three children, and her father. They are now homeless and are sleeping in a car.

“Nobody will help us,” he said. “Any time we ring the council, they refuse to talk to us, and the TAU [Traveller accommodation unit] never come back to us.”

The council refuted this claim, and said it had offered “both emergency accommodation and permanent accommodation” to a household affected by the fire, but both offers were turned down.

Green Party city councillor Oliver Moran, who chairs the council’s Traveller accommodation committee, described conditions in Spring Lane as “an affront to human dignity”.

“The idea of another Carrickmines is something that should keep people awake at night."

“It’s cold comfort for this family, but this could have been much worse. What if it had happened when people were asleep? We cannot keep managing a city by the grace of God,” he said.

Cork City Council said Cork City Fire Brigade had dealt with a small fire in the Bay 10 caravan at 10.57pm on September 16, and returned at 12.30am after the alarm was again raised.

“The previously extinguished caravan fire in Bay 10 was now well alight with a large fire. A second caravan in Bay Nine was also ablaze.”

A council spokesperson said both caravan fires were extinguished, and firefighters ventilated a third, smoke-logged caravan.

“The scene was handed over to An Garda Síochána at around 1.50am. The incidents are under investigation.”

However, a garda spokesperson said: “No offences have been disclosed. No foul play is suspected.”