‘Some people lose fingers or an entire hand’: Warning over illegal fireworks being sold online to children

Illegal fireworks are being sold to children through social media platforms, a garda has said. “A lot of the sales nowadays happen on social media, on social media marketplaces,” said Sgt John Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick said Snapchat, WhatsApp and other messaging platforms with disappearing messages are beings used to sell fireworks. The Irish Times has also seen advertisements on the encrypted Telegram messaging platform.Gardaí are understood to be collecting intelligence on these sales, particularly those geared towards younger people.The danger posed by unlicensed fireworks was highlighted this week when a man (20) suffered “horrific injuries”, including multiple finger amputations and the degloving of his hand in west-central Dublin after a firework exploded. READ MOREIncidents such as these are common, with the majority of firework-related injuries being sustained by children and adults staging fireworks displays in back gardens.During the seven-day Halloween period last year, nine boys were referred with firework-related injuries to the paediatric plastic surgery service at Children’s Health Ireland in Crumlin, Dublin.This included one patient who was referred to surgeons for two separate firework injuries just days apart. The average age of the nine children was 12, a research paper from the hospital’s department of plastic surgery earlier this year stated.The suspects for offences related to fireworks in the past two years were male in 95 per cent of cases, with three in four being children, according to Garda data.“Fireworks are illegal for a very good reason, and that is they are actually an explosive,” said Greg O’Dwyer, chief fire officer with Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) said.[ Killer cobwebs: The Halloween decorations causing problems for wildlifeOpens in new window ]Fireworks incidents are part of the reason Halloween night is “by far” the busiest of the year for DFB, with more than 1,000 contacts typically made to its call centre every year.These incidents sometimes involve children approaching supposed “dud” fireworks that explode. In other cases, fireworks ignite as a result of friction in a child’s pocket. Even in controlled demonstrations, DFB has had dealt with the consequences of fireworks igniting too quickly.“The resulting injuries are actually life-changing or devastating,” O’Dwyer said. “Some people lose fingers or they lose an entire hand. Personally, I’ve seen cases where young people have lost their entire hand.”Uncontrolled rockets can shoot off in “completely the wrong direction, going into houses through open doors or windows, going under cars, setting cars on fire, and setting houses on fire”, he said.Many illegal fireworks are manufactured in China or in unlicensed factories in eastern Europe, and DFB and the Garda agree that a big issue is the lack of control and regulation around the explosives. “You don’t know exactly what’s in them,” Fitzpatrick said. “You know that you never know what you’re getting, that’s why they’re so dangerous.” Gardaí have made 1,883 seizures of unlicensed fireworks, valued at €347,516, over the past decade. In the past two years 575 firework seizures were made and the force, under its annual Operation Tombola, recorded a 7 per cent increase in seizures by October 6th of this year.The total was boosted by Revenue officers discovering 1.12 million “Black Cat bangers”, worth more than €2.2 million, that had been shipped from France to Rosslare Europort, Co Wexford.[ Pet owners urged to be wary of firework noise as Halloween approachesOpens in new window ]Despite this, the supply of fireworks remains a “significant problem” for the Garda, Fitzpatrick said. “I don’t think anyone hasn’t heard a firework at some stage in the last couple of weeks.”It is an offence to sell or supply unlicensed fireworks in the State, with separate offences relating to lighting or throwing illegal fireworks. The same is not true in nearby jurisdictions.The mismatch with fireworks legislation in Northern Ireland, the UK and continental Europe is a big contributing factor to the flow of fireworks into the State.They are imported by small-scale and “organised” larger-scale operators, with groups often engaging in drug dealing standing to profit from the supply of fireworks due to their covert supply networks.“Often times that is who you are supporting [by buying fireworks],” a Garda source said.