Ghost estate claims first victim

prinz · 27-02-2012 01:27PM

ash23 wrote: »

Do all the people who are blaming the parents also disagree with pedestrian crossing, health and safety laws re: building sites, speed bumps etc? To me it's fairly fundamentally obvious. If a place is dangerous and is not being worked on then it should be properly secure to prevent accidents. And the barriers should be checked and maintained.

It's not a question of being mutually exclusive, parents or developers. At the end of the day the primary responsibility lies with whoever was supposed to be taking care of the poor kid at the time.

Any subsequent blame on the builders/developers comes secondary.

Nothingbetter2d · 27-02-2012 01:30PM

ash23 wrote: »

Do all the people who are blaming the parents also disagree with pedestrian crossing, health and safety laws re: building sites, speed bumps etc?
To me it's fairly fundamentally obvious. If a place is dangerous and is not being worked on then it should be properly secure to prevent accidents. And the barriers should be checked and maintained.

the same could be applied to the child's home... why wasn't it secured so that a toddler couldnt walk out on to a main road and then down into a building site.

if the child's home had been properly secured that child would still be alive today.

27-02-2012 01:31PM

prinz wrote: »

It's not a question of being mutually exclusive, parents or developers. At the end of the day the primary responsibility lies with whoever was supposed to be taking care of the poor kid at the time.

Any subsequent blame on the builders/developers comes secondary.

Yes I agree, safety is something that we all are responsible for, but no parent is perfect 24/7/365, that's why the secondary dangers need to addressed as well.

prinz · 27-02-2012 01:35PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes I agree, safety is something that we all are responsible for, but no parent is perfect 24/7/365, that's why the secondary dangers need to addressed as well.

Yes they do, but people are correct to raise the issue of the parents/ guardians role in this case, and you don't have to be a 'perfect parent' to keep an eye on a two year old.

27-02-2012 01:40PM

prinz wrote: »

you don't have to be a 'perfect parent' to keep an eye on a two year old.

OK, so you just need to lock them up!

Turpentine · 27-02-2012 01:41PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Yes I agree, safety is something that we all are responsible for, but no parent is perfect 24/7/365, that's why the secondary dangers need to addressed as well.

You are correct, we should barricade all the roads in case an unsupervised child should wander in front of a car, barricade all ponds in case an unsupervised child should fall in, put down all dogs in case an unsupervised child gets mauled.

Then we should tackle the ghost estates, which judging by your hyperbolic thread title will eventually rise and devour us all.

prinz · 27-02-2012 01:43PM

Deleted User wrote: »

OK, so you just need to lock them up!

Essentially, yes. No two year old should be able to leave a home unsupervised and unnoticed IMO. If that means locking the doors, or having those little plastic gates fitted across the doorway then so be it.

Turpentine · 27-02-2012 01:45PM

Deleted User wrote: »

OK, so you just need to lock them up!

You think a 2 year old should be free to run around of their own volition?

Phenomenally Phrank · 27-02-2012 01:47PM

I blame the parents. Who the **** lets a 2 year old wander out on their own?

sombaht · 27-02-2012 01:50PM

prinz wrote: »

Essentially, yes. No two year old should be able to leave a home unsupervised and unnoticed IMO. If that means locking the doors, or having those little plastic gates fitted across the doorway then so be it.

A simple secondary door lock would prevent any 2 year old from opening the door and walking out unsupervised. No young child old can open one of these if set at the correct hight (say in excess of 5 feet).

http://www.hardwareireland.ie/store/product.php?id=174

Tragic for the parents certainly but could have been so preventable.

Cheers,
sombaht

ash23 · 27-02-2012 02:00PM

Agreed that there is some responsibility there with regards to the supervision of the child. However that doesn't absolve the responsibility of the developers.

And with regard to the law, it's unlikely a parent will be prosecuted for their child escaping a house. It happens and they've paid the ultimate price.
However there is a real health and safety issue with these unfinished estates. I live near one (not too bad as the houses are finished but the site hasn't been cleared) and it's not safe. I've my kid warned not to go near the rubble and the rubbish but I can't be sure she never will, short of chaining her to a post in the garden.

The long and the short of it is, that you wouldn't let your kid go play in a building site. However that's fine and dandy when the works are ongoing, people are around and the boundaries, signage etc is being maintained and it's short term.
However these estates are long term, empty, not maintained and in my opinion a real attraction to young kids and teenagers looking for a hideout or some divilment or a place to be alone.
Back when I was a kid it was playgrounds and fields and by the river that we went to for some place to play or hang out.Not always the safest of placed but nothing compared to an unfinisished empty building site.
Now these kids have half built empty houses and estates to go and hang out in.
I'm surprised that it was a toddler to be honest. I was expecting to hear a group of older kids/teens had been badly injured because I'd imagine those estates are a beacon for teens.
I know when my house was being built it was used as a party place for kids who would come and light a fire in the unfinished fireplace and have parties etc. When we got the doors in and locked them they tried to kick the door in because we ruined the party place for them. They didn't see it as someones house. More as their den.

Turpentine · 27-02-2012 02:04PM

ash23 wrote: »

Agreed that there is some responsibility there with regards to the supervision of the child. However that doesn't absolve the responsibility of the developers.

And with regard to the law, it's unlikely a parent will be prosecuted for their child escaping a house. It happens and they've paid the ultimate price.
However there is a real health and safety issue with these unfinished estates. I live near one (not too bad as the houses are finished but the site hasn't been cleared) and it's not safe. I've my kid warned not to go near the rubble and the rubbish but I can't be sure she never will, short of chaining her to a post in the garden.

The long and the short of it is, that you wouldn't let your kid go play in a building site. However that's fine and dandy when the works are ongoing, people are around and the boundaries, signage etc is being maintained and it's short term.
However these estates are long term, empty, not maintained and in my opinion a real attraction to young kids and teenagers looking for a hideout or some divilment or a place to be alone.
Back when I was a kid it was playgrounds and fields and by the river that we went to for some place to play or hang out. Now these kids have half built empty houses and estates to go and hang out in.
I'm surprised that it was a toddler to be honest. I was expecting to hear a group of older kids/teens had been badly injured because I'd imagine those estates are a beacon for teens.

And if you'd fallen in the river would you have blamed the county council for allowing you near it?

Voodu Child · 27-02-2012 02:06PM

If an unsupervised 2 year old wanders off, there are a dozen ways they could be killed in any housing estate or area.

That's why you supervise your kids 100% of the time at that age.

ash23 · 27-02-2012 02:07PM

Turpentine wrote: »

And if you'd fallen in the river would you have blamed the county council for allowing you near it?

Depends. The river near the town were fenced off, warning signs, life buoys etc. The ones ajoining farms weren't but you had to cross miles of fields to get there (and trespass etc).
If a river ran along a housing estate it would be fenced off. These empty housing estates are mainly adjacent to other housing estates.
Surely you can see the difference?

homerjay2005 · 27-02-2012 02:08PM

ash23 wrote: »

Agreed that there is some responsibility there with regards to the supervision of the child. However that doesn't absolve the responsibility of the developers.

And with regard to the law, it's unlikely a parent will be prosecuted for their child escaping a house. It happens and they've paid the ultimate price.
However there is a real health and safety issue with these unfinished estates. I live near one (not too bad as the houses are finished but the site hasn't been cleared) and it's not safe. I've my kid warned not to go near the rubble and the rubbish but I can't be sure she never will, short of chaining her to a post in the garden.

The long and the short of it is, that you wouldn't let your kid go play in a building site. However that's fine and dandy when the works are ongoing, people are around and the boundaries, signage etc is being maintained and it's short term.
However these estates are long term, empty, not maintained and in my opinion a real attraction to young kids and teenagers looking for a hideout or some divilment or a place to be alone.
Back when I was a kid it was playgrounds and fields and by the river that we went to for some place to play or hang out.Not always the safest of placed but nothing compared to an unfinisished empty building site.
Now these kids have half built empty houses and estates to go and hang out in.
I'm surprised that it was a toddler to be honest. I was expecting to hear a group of older kids/teens had been badly injured because I'd imagine those estates are a beacon for teens.
I know when my house was being built it was used as a party place for kids who would come and light a fire in the unfinished fireplace and have parties etc. When we got the doors in and locked them they tried to kick the door in because we ruined the party place for them. They didn't see it as someones house. More as their den.

so if they child walked out on to the road and got killed by a car instead of the building site, who would you blame?

from the reports going about, he walked through a fence hole in his own back garden. how come all the focus by the blame game people in our society will ignore this and focus on the hole at the other side? if it wasnt a ghost estate, it would have been something else, a ditch, a car, a stream.

i can tell you one thing, no 2 year old child of mine would be left outside the door unsupervised and certainly not for that amount of time.

DublinWriter · 27-02-2012 02:08PM

What if the child had wandered out onto a busy road and got knocked down and killed?

Would we be hand-wringing and calling for the head of the NRA to be sacked and all members of the SIMI to be prosecuted?

No we wouldn't.

100% fault of the parent(s), simple as - they should be investigated for neglect.

ash23 · 27-02-2012 02:13PM

homerjay2005 wrote: »

so if they child walked out on to the road and got killed by a car instead of the building site, who would you blame?

I did say

Agreed that there is some responsibility there with regards to the supervision of the child. However that doesn't absolve the responsibility of the developers.

And with regard to the law, it's unlikely a parent will be prosecuted for their child escaping a house. It happens and they've paid the ultimate price.
However there is a real health and safety issue with these unfinished estates.

There is of course personal responsibility (or in the case of a child, parental) but by that logic there would be no accident blackspots or health and safety laws because it'd be a case of "feck them it's their own fault they were killed or injured" etc.

Surely it's obvious that if a site is dangerous and accessible then something should be done no?
Even just regulation that the developers have to check the boundaries monthly and plug any gaps. Or should we just leave these ghost estates to fall down and become more and more dangerous?

Turpentine · 27-02-2012 02:18PM

ash23 wrote: »

Depends. The river near the town were fenced off, warning signs, life buoys etc. The ones ajoining farms weren't but you had to cross miles of fields to get there (and trespass etc).
If a river ran along a housing estate it would be fenced off. These empty housing estates are mainly adjacent to other housing estates.
Surely you can see the difference?

Not really.

By your logic it would seem that you shouldn't have been able to access the river at all and that any accident that befell you would be the responsibility of someone else rather than through your own actions of actually going there in the first place.

Surely you can see the lack of personal responsibility?

ash23 wrote: »

These empty housing estates are mainly adjacent to other housing estates.

These empty housing estates didn't just spring up last week either, surely anyone living in their vicinity would know of their existence?

ash23 · 27-02-2012 02:22PM

Turpentine wrote: »

Not really.

By your logic it would seem that you shouldn't have been able to access the river at all and that any accident that befell you would be the responsibility of someone else rather than through your own actions of actually going there in the first place.

Surely you can see the lack of personal responsibility?

These empty housing estates didn't just spring up last week either, surely anyone living in their vicinity would know of their existence?

Again, i've already said there is personal responsibility.

My point re: the river is that it wouldn't make sense to have an open pond in the middle of a playground. There are things that can be done to make areas safer. For example making developers responsible for maintaining the boundaries of these "ghost" estates.
Becasue if personal responsibility is the be all and end all you might as well shut down the road safety authority, the health and safety authority, the Financial regulator and any other body designed to help us make this country safer or help us make better decisions.

Lollipops23 · 27-02-2012 02:24PM

In fairness, my neighbour's then 18month old managed to escape out of the house and around the corner a few years back. She stood on something to open the door handle and off she toddled. Took him all of 30 seconds to realise the door was open, but she'd bolted off at that stage.

I'm just saying- toddlers can be wily little escape artists.

prinz · 27-02-2012 02:38PM

ash23 wrote: »

Becasue if personal responsibility is the be all and end all you might as well shut down the road safety authority, the health and safety authority, the Financial regulator and any other body designed to help us make this country safer or help us make better decisions.

Once again, it's not an either/or issue. We can have personal responsibility and health and safety laws. The RSA and the HSA etc can only go so far. Barriers and fences and signage can only do so much. Look at how many grown supposedly mature adults can't abide by signage and warnings..

They can't be around holding your child's hand day in day out.

ash23 · 27-02-2012 02:44PM

prinz wrote: »

Once again, it's not an either/or issue. We can have personal responsibility and health and safety laws. The RSA and the HSA etc can only go so far. Barriers and fences and signage can only do so much. Look at how many grown supposedly mature adults can't abide by signage and warnings..

They can't be around holding your child's hand day in day out.

No they can't. But should that mean that the developers of that site who were not maintaining the boundaries and leaving the site fairly accessible to the general public shouldn't be held accountable, if not for the death then at least for not maintaining the site.

Funny how they got their asses in gear fairly quickly once the child had died.

prinz · 27-02-2012 02:50PM

ash23 wrote: »

No they can't. But should that mean that the developers of that site who were not maintaining the boundaries and leaving the site fairly accessible to the general public shouldn't be held accountable, if not for the death then at least for not maintaining the site. Funny how they got their asses in gear fairly quickly once the child had died.

Of course they should be. Must've been pretty shoddy if a two year old could get in, but like I said that's all secondary to what the parents were up to. Hence people discussing/blaming the parents which is what you seemd to have a problem with.

Turpentine · 27-02-2012 02:51PM

ash23 wrote: »

No they can't. But should that mean that the developers of that site who were not maintaining the boundaries and leaving the site fairly accessible to the general public shouldn't be held accountable, if not for the death then at least for not maintaining the site.

Funny how they got their asses in gear fairly quickly once the child had died.

Now you can move on to blaming the dog owners for having a dog running around free on a housing estate where there were children... oh wait...

ash23 · 27-02-2012 02:53PM

prinz wrote: »

Of course they should be. Must've been pretty shoddy if a two year old could get in, but like I said that's all secondary to what the parents were up to. Hence people discussing/blaming the parents which is what you seemd to have a problem with.

No I just objected to people saying that the child must have been left alone for ages. I pointed out that it wasn't necessarily the case.
I also think that the parents have paid with their childs life and I can't see how they can be punished any more than they already have been.

Lollipops23 · 27-02-2012 02:55PM

ash23 wrote: »

No I just objected to people saying that the child must have been left alone for ages. I pointed out that it wasn't necessarily the case.
I also think that the parents have paid with their childs life and I can't see how they can be punished any more than they already have been.

Exactly, if it had been hours before they noticed the child missing then it would be different- but this whole thing began and ended within a few minutes. The time it takes to make a cup of tea or answer the phone or the door.

prinz · 27-02-2012 02:56PM

ash23 wrote: »

No I just objected to people saying that the child must have been left alone for ages. I pointed out that it wasn't necessarily the case..

It was necessarily the case. The child should never have been in a position to be on the ghost estate at all. Ever. No matter what state the fencing was in.

ash23 wrote: »

I also think that the parents have paid with their childs life and I can't see how they can be punished any more than they already have been.

They can't, but that doesn't mean someone else should be punished in their place either.

prinz · 27-02-2012 02:59PM

Lollipops23 wrote: »

- but this whole thing began and ended within a few minutes. The time it takes to make a cup of tea or answer the phone or the door.

Why would anyone of those things mean a two year old is left unsupervised and able to walk away from their home unnoticed?

ash23 · 27-02-2012 03:00PM

prinz wrote: »

They can't, but that doesn't mean someone else should be punished in their place either.

I'm not saying the developer should be punished for murder or anything. But if he failed to do what he was meant to do (maintain the estate and keep it safe) then he should be punished for that.
And also other developers should realise that there are consequences to leaving an estate empty and open.

kylith · 27-02-2012 03:42PM

homerjay2005 wrote: »

so if they child walked out on to the road and got killed by a car instead of the building site, who would you blame?

from the reports going about, he walked through a fence hole in his own back garden. how come all the focus by the blame game people in our society will ignore this and focus on the hole at the other side? if it wasnt a ghost estate, it would have been something else, a ditch, a car, a stream.

i can tell you one thing, no 2 year old child of mine would be left outside the door unsupervised and certainly not for that amount of time.

So, his parents failed to ensure that their garden was secure? That makes it even less the developer's fault. I have plenty of sympathy for them, but it was their own damned fault.

Ghost estate claims first victim

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