Two years for arsonist who caused €2m damage to HSE building

A middle-aged man who threw a lit tissue through the letterbox of the southern headquarters of the Health Service Executive, causing more than €2m in damage, was today jailed for two years for arson.

Earlier on the day in question Thomas (Tom) Jones (aged 48), formerly of Ringmahon Avenue, Mahon, Cork, got news that his younger brother had been diagnosed with cancer.

“I got the bad news that day. I found out that morning. I was going around in a trance. I was drinking for the day.

“I had nothing against the HSE or the people that work there or the people that owns the place. I apologise to those people. I cannot explain why I done that. I can only describe it as a moment of madness.”

Judge Con Murphy imposed a three-year sentence on Jones with the last year of that sentence suspended. Noting that the accused had been in custody on the matter since July of this year, the judge backdated the sentence to that time.

Judge Murphy took into consideration the fact that the defendant pleaded guilty, he cooperated with the garda investigation and he expressed genuine remorse.

Sergeant Tim Murphy said that on the night of the crime, June 30 2007, Jones was seen several times in the area of the HSE building. Finally at 11.30pm on that night a man at a bus stop across the road saw Jones lighting tissues and posting them through the letter box.

Sgt. Murphy said that there were cassette tapes and other flammable materials near the inside of the letterbox and these materials caught fire. No petrol or accelerants were used in the arson, according to the sergeant.

Sgt. Murphy said that over the past few years he had known Jones as a person who slept rough in that part of the city from time to time. He had numerous public order convictions.

Most of the building’s 190 staff reported for work as normal at the former farm centre building after the fire last year but several dozen were told to stay away until alternative office arrangements were made.

Several services were relocated in the short-term to other HSE offices in Wilton, the Kinsale Road and elsewhere in Cork city. The estimated €2m cost of the arson arises from repair to the damaged building and the necessity to relocate some of the staff.

Sgt. Murphy said that the full cost was met by insurance.