Mother and child victims of fire are critical

A mother and her two-year-old son were last night fighting for their lives in Dublin hospitals following a fire at a flat complex in the north inner city on Saturday.

The blaze broke out in the ground floor stairwell of St Nicholas House, Church Street, shortly before 6 a.m. on Saturday.

Five children, a woman and a man, were brought to the nearby Temple Street Children's Hospital and the Mater hospital after the emergency services were alerted. Four of the children and the man were later discharged, having suffered minor injuries from smoke inhalation.

The woman, a Nigerian, and her baby boy sustained severe burns. She was transferred to the burns unit at St James's Hospital while her son was taken from Temple Street to the intensive care unit at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. Both were in a critical condition last night.

Gardaí were yesterday running tests at the building to try to establish the cause of the fire.

The stairwell was used as a storage area by the mainly non-national residents of the flats and the remains of several children's pushchairs were found at the scene.

The fire caused extensive damage to the ground floor hallway but did not spread to any of the flats. Gardaí said it was unclear how the woman and her child became caught in the blaze.

She has not regained consciousness since the incident and it is not known if she was in the hall when the fire started, or if she was injured while attempting to escape from her home.

A Nigerian neighbour said the woman had lived alone with her son at the complex for several months.

"I just knew her to smile and say hello, but she is a very nice person. It was frightening when the smoke started, so maybe she thought it was better to try to get through the fire than wait for the firemen to come." she said.

A Romanian man living in the building said he has decided to move because he believes the fire had been started deliberately.

"I have only been here two days but I didn't stay last night and I am not going to stay. I don't think it's safe."