The inquest into the death of a father and son in a fire in an apartment in Sligo town has heard that the power supply to the fire alarm system in building had been turned off for a number of years and there was no evidence of any fire safety management of the property at the time of the fire or leading up to it.
Christopher "Sunny" Harte aged 63 and his 34-year-old son Sean died in a fire at the apartment building at 25 Market Street in the early hours of 22 April 2017.
Then Acting Chief Fire Officer Gerry O'Malley told the coroner's court on the second day of the inquest that in circumstances where you had fully operational fire doors and a working fire alarm system it is unlikely those fatalities would have happened.
Mr O'Malley said that the main supply to the alarm system had been turned off for a considerable time; there was no directional exit signage; no fire extinguishers or fire points in the buildings and the doors to each apartment were not certified fire doors.
The Fire Officer said: "As Henry Auctioneers maintain they have no management responsibility for the premises and every attempt to communicate with the property owner directly and through their solicitors have failed, there are no records available to the fire authority to demonstrate that fire safety was being managed in the building."
The inquest heard from Mary Henry yesterday that her company was a letting agent for the property but not block managers and so had no responsibility for common areas.
She said they had put in fire extinguishers, fire blankets and smoke detectors in each rented apartment.
An employee of the company Sean Monaghan said that he did not carry out repairs in the building.
If there was anything wrong it was reported to the owner of the building Santos Singh who lives in Birmingham, he said, and Mrs Singh would get it done.
James Mahon, who lived in another apartment in the building at the time, told the inquest that he was woken by loud voices around 4am and got out of bed to investigate.
He saw the door to the apartment across from him was wide open and, he said, the fire seemed well established with large flames.
He said there was a large explosion and thinks the side window of that apartment was blown out.
In relation to his own apartment, Mr Mahon said there was no smoke detector in it and it was never inspected by the letting agent.
He said it was inspected by Sligo County Council and recommendations were made but were not followed up on.
Mr Mahon produced an improvement notice to the court which had been issued by the council in October 2015 and which noted two contraventions of fire safety legislation - there was no emergency evacuation plan and no fire blanket.
Another resident of a flat in the building at the time, Kevin Hegarty, told the inquest that he had three friends staying with him that night.
He said they managed to escape out the bathroom window to a fire escape.
There were smoke detectors in the flat, he said but no alarm went off that night.
Mr Hegarty said he and his friends were treated for smoke inhalation.
He said he felt very mad and traumatised by what had happened and said they were very lucky not to have died.
Coroner Eamon McGowan noted that following the fire a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions but the DPP chose not to proceed with a case.
Gerry O'Malley said he did not know for definite why that was the case and he also said he didn't know definitively why the fire started.
He said the Garda Technical Bureau had carried out an investigation and found no accelerant.
Solicitor for the Harte family Ciaran Tansey, said they had had an expert report carried out which indicated that the fire had been started by an electrical appliance in a room in the vacant flat beneath the one occupied by Sunny and Sean Harte.
The inquest resumes tomorrow.
