Six homes connected with Ryanair ‘deliberately targeted’ in arson attack

BREAKING

After several wheelie bins were pulled up to the front doors of six homes and set on fire on Monday night, Gardaí and Dublin Fire Brigade rushed to the scene at Fosterstown Place in Swords.

The attack has been condemned by Ryanair, as the airline revealed it is assisting Gardaí with their investigation into this “criminal arson attack”.

“Mindless idiots set fire to rubbish wheelie bins and placed them immediately in front of the doors of seven properties, which are rented and occupied by Ryanair’s Irish and EU employees”, a Ryanair spokesperson said.

It added: “This criminal vandalism was reported to An Garda Siochana. Thanks to the prompt efforts of the Dublin Fire Brigade and the Garda Siochana in Swords, the damage was limited to burns on the front doors of these properties in the Swords area”.

The airline is assisting in the investigations

As they confirmed they are now assisting Gardaí with the investigation, Ryanair said that the “stupidity” of the attackers is “hard to comprehend”.

According to another spokesman for Ryanair, “this was clearly a criminal attack on rental properties in the Swords area. The stupidity of these people is hard to comprehend when these properties are rented to hard working Irish and EU young people who work for Ryanair Inflight, Engineering, and in our Swords Head Office and who pay their taxes here in the Irish State.”

The spokesperson added: “Ryanair is one of the largest employers in the Swords area, and it's difficult to understand what these “morons” thought they would achieve by this arson attack on rental properties and our hard-working employees.

The airline said that “none of the properties suffered serious damage, and thankfully none of Ryanair's employees were harmed in any way although some are understandably unnerved by this senseless arson attack on the homes of hard-working young people.”

Reportedly, two of the homes were completely engulfed in flames by the time Dublin Fire Brigade attended the scene, while sources say that the homes are connected to Ryanair staff who often rent the homes.

The homes, which are located close to Dublin Airport, are feared to have been deliberately targeted.

In 2024 it was widely reported that that Ryanair purchased 25 of the 28 new-built homes at the Fosterstown Place development, and that for newly hired cabin crew the properties are used as affordable, short-term rentals by the airline.