Council must pay €450k over deaths of two firefighters

A court has fined Wicklow County Council €355,000 plus legal costs of nearly €96,000 for criminal health and safety violations relating to a warehouse blaze in which two firefighters died.

Brian Murray, aged 46, and Mark O’Shaughnessy, aged 26, died fighting a blaze at a disused ink factory at Adelaide Villas in Bray on Sept 26, 2007.

During a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last July, the council pleaded guilty to three charges of health and safety breaches. These pleas were accepted by the State, which withdrew a charge alleging one of the breaches caused the deaths.