Gardaí in Cork are continuing to question a 22-year-old man today in connection with the fire that claimed the lives of Helena O’Dwyer and her nephew, Ryan at their family home in Cork.
The 25-year-old mother of one and her five-year-old nephew were killed early yesterday in a suspected arson attack.
Detectives arrested the 22-year-old man at about noon yesterday for questioning. He is from the Mahon area.
He was arrested on the South Main Street in Cork city centre under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows gardaí to detain suspects for up to 24 hours. He was brought to Bridewell Garda station for questioning.
Ms O'Dwyer had moved back into the family home on Nutley Avenue in Mahon after she was attacked in her own home last week.
Six other members of the O'Dwyer family including Ms O'Dwyer's parents, Joe (55) and Helena (49); her daughter Courtney (5), her sister Dawn (22) and Dawn's two children, William (4) and Katelyn (2) were also in the house when the fire broke out at about 3am.
Helena's other sister, Josephine, the mother of the boy who died, was not in the house at the time. Josephine – who is expecting another child – was yesterday being comforted by relatives.
It is understood Helena O'Dwyer and her daughter had moved back to her parents' four-bedroom council house for the weekend after she was assaulted by a man known to her when he broke into their home in Mahon last week.
All six survivors of the fire were taken to Cork University Hospital where they were treated for smoke inhalation. One adult was later discharged, but the remaining two adults and three children were all kept in for observation with their condition described as "stable".
It is understood some of the family managed to make their way from the house after fire broke out in a downstairs room, but neighbours were prevented by smoke and flames from getting upstairs to where Helena and Ryan were asleep.
Two units of Cork city fire brigade attended at the scene. Using breathing apparatus, officers managed to remove the two casualties and attempted to resuscitate them at the scene without success before they were taken to hospital.
Fire brigade third officer Adrian Spillett said: "The house was severely on fire and we got reports that there were people possibly still inside, so we immediately attacked the fire and sent in search parties and retrieved a young woman and young child."
After firefighters made safe the end-of-terrace two-storey house, gardaí took possession of the building and cordoned it off for Garda technical experts to begin a forensic examination to try to establish the cause of the blaze.
Gardaí suspect that a petrol bomb may have been thrown in through a downstairs window but were still awaiting the full results of the forensic examination before they could confirm this occurred.
Gardaí also began to study CCTV footage from a number of commercial premises, including petrol stations in the area, while a team of detectives began door-to-door inquiries in the Nutley Avenue area to see if anyone had noticed any suspicious activity.
Gardaí also carried out a technical examination of a car found burnt out less than a mile away near Blackrock Castle but they were last night inclined to discount the possibility that the burning of this car was related to the suspected arson attack.
State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy was continuing last night with postmortem examinations on the two deceased, which was expected to confirm that both died as a result of smoke inhalation.