Two people remain in custody over Waterford arson attack

Two people, who were arrested as part of an investigation into the murders of four members of a family in Waterford, remain in garda custody today.

A man in his 20s and a woman in her 30s are being questioned about their roles in the firebomb attack on the family home of Kim and Philip English.

Kim and Philip English and their sons, 12-year-old Callum and nine-year-old Jayden, died after an incendiary device set fire to their home in the Birchwood estate in Waterford at 5am on Tuesday morning.

The attack also left the English family's two other children, a 14-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy, critically ill in hospital.

The victims had no involvement in drugs or crime but their family say they were attacked because someone known to them owed €20,000 for drugs.

The man and the woman who have been arrested were detained on suspicion of helping an organised crime gang to carry out the attack and are being held under anti-gang legislation. They can be detained for up to seven days.

They are being interviewed separately under caution by local detectives and specialist interviewers from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.

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They are believed to be lower down the ranks of the criminal gang which carried out the murderous attack, but gardaí say they will pursue all those involved, from those who carried it out up to those who ordered it.

Philip, Kim, Callum and Jayden English will be laid to rest following requiem mass at the Sacred Heart Church in Waterford next Monday.