Domestic tragedy - We all must act to keep children safe

The death of a two-year-old child in a domestic accident must be every parent’s worst nightmare.

Last February, Gillian Malley found her two-year-old son Arran hanging from the steel-beaded cord attached to the upstairs blinds at their home on the outskirts of Carrigtohill, Co Cork. Despite frantic efforts to resuscitate him, Arran died.

Shane Malley had shortened the chords on the Venetian blinds down stairs, but found the steel beaded cord upstairs impossible to shorten. When he went about the grim task of replacing the blinds involved in the tragic death of his son, he made the discovery that what happened was not a once-off accident.