"This is something that was waiting to happen," said a young woman near the charred shell of 255 Buttercup Park yesterday morning. Pulling her own young daughter closer to her side, the dark-haired woman of about 20 said she did not want to be named.
"I have to live here when you've gone. I don't want it to be my house next. There's trouble here every night of the week, rowing and noise and cars being trashed. They have the run of the place, can do what they like. But the police are going to have to do something now. A child is dead."
When asked who "they" were, she said: "Junkies, trouble-makers, young teenagers. They just barefaced laugh at you and we're all sick of it."
She was one of four women gathered opposite the house where Adam Lieghio (18 months) had perished early yesterday morning. Shaking their heads, they said Adam's mother Louisa was "a very quiet private girl".
"Herself and David just kept to themselves. I didn't know them well," said another. "All I know is they were a very quiet, polite couple. She's [Louisa] lived here all her life and Adam was their first baby. God knows how they are coping."
"He [Adam] was a little dote," smiled a woman of about 30, dressed in a grey skirt, cardigan and slippers. "He was small. Always happy. But something will have to be done now. No child should have to be subjected to that." No one in the small, old rambling estate who would speak about yesterday morning's fire would allow their names to be used. One young man, who sat on his bike watching as Garda forensics experts arrived, said he had heard arguments outside on the road at about 2 a.m. yesterday.
"That died down then, and then there was a crash of broken glass and the next thing there was thick, dense, black smoke and flames everywhere. Louisa came out and she was screaming: `My baby's in there. My baby's in there.' She was hysterical. God, it was awful," he said. "No one could get in, though, the smoke was that thick."
Another woman, in her 30s, said the gardai arrived "in minutes".
"And in fairness to them, they really did try to get in and get the baby. They tried a few times. Everyone was out trying to do something."
The house itself was sealed off yesterday morning, its three upper windows blackened by smoke, the lower front window smashed. Smoky black stains covered the window frames and the front of the house, while a couch lay upended on the ground outside, beneath the living room window.
In the corner of the small front garden, a child's tricycle was parked on the grass. In the railings were four bunches of summer flowers along with a Rupert Bear soft toy. The house had been burned out, although yesterday morning children's clothes still hung on the line in its back garden.
