Woman being set on fire in Clondalkin was 'depraved' and 'attempted murder', councillor says
Vivienne Clarke
Sinn Féin councillor for the Clondalkin area, William Carey, has described the incident in which a woman was set on fire as “depraved”.
A lot of thought and planning had gone into such an attack; it was essentially “attempted murder”, he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
He said people in the area were “angry, annoyed and shocked” at the level of violence in the attack, and the whole area was in shock.
On Tuesday, gardaí said a woman was being treated for serious burn injuries after an alleged assault at a home in west Dublin.
They said they were investigating the incident, which happened at a property in Clondalkin at around 10:10am on Tuesday.
The woman was taken to the hospital to be treated for burn injuries, which are believed to be serious, while a man was also taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries believed to be non-life-threatening.
Cllr Carey, who is also chair of the Oak Downs residents association, the estate where the incident occurred, described the area as “not a big crime area” and he urged anybody who had information about the attack to contact the gardaí.
“The whole estate, the whole area here are in quite a lot of shock. It was a quiet morning in the area, nobody expected anything like this to be happening in our area.
"It's quite an idyllic type of estate, a lot of private homeowners, a lot of hardworking people and to have this happening on the doorstep is completely shocking.
“The sense of depravity involved in this attack is quite frightening and it has people doubly shocked at the level of violence because this is not the type of thing we would expect in the area here.
"I wouldn't say this would be an issue that we would expect to see or hear within the area. It's not a big crime area. Recently at our residents association meeting we had the local community garda in attendance and he described incidents that are occurring in the area as very low key.
Cllr Carey said he lived less than 150 yards from the house where the attack happened and he was concerned that at the time the local crèche had been bringing children to a park “and this is what they almost passed.”
