Help on hand for fire classmates

Counsellors will be on hand at a Wexford school attended by two children killed in a weekend house fire.

The bodies of Mark Flood, 6, and Julie, 5, were found on Saturday with those of their parents Dermot, 41, and Lorraine, 38, in their house in Clonroche.

Gardaí have said they are treating the deaths as suspicious.

The children attended St Aidan's National School and on Monday counsellors and local clergy will be on hand to help classmates.

Principal Norma Doyle said the "happy, bubbly children" will be missed.

"We are all struggling to come to terms with this dreadful tragedy - our school has lost two beautiful students," she said.

At the weekend it emerged the parents had wounds not associated with the blaze and a firearm belonging to a member of the wider family circle was recovered.

Police investigating the blaze are not looking for anyone else.

The family was well known in south Wexford with Dermot running his father's firm, Sean Flood Water Filtration, for the last few years.

Lorraine's family, the Kehoes, were all also well known.

Denis Kennedy, a local Fine Gael councillor who is related to the Kehoes, said the area had once again been left in shock.

"It's very, very hard to comprehend at all. They would have been very well known families who lived in the area all their life times," he said.

"There's no way anyone can console them. What words can you say that would offer them some comfort?"

The mother-of-two took part in the Rose of Tralee contest in 1991 and worked as an aerobics instructor.

She was a first cousin of Reading and Republic of Ireland international footballer Kevin Doyle.

The striker was told the tragic news by team manager Steve Coppell at half time during a crucial match on Saturday.