Posted By Anwar Afzal Whilst it has been a very sad week to learn of the children who died and the father and partner who were in a coma as a result of alleged carbon monoxide poisoning, this shows the lack of safety regime in Europe in comparisent to ours in the UK. How can we enforce safety on these countries that are affecting our health and safety? Do we stop holidaying abroad or can we put pressures on the holiday company for assurances such as copies of recent maintenance checks etc? It is easy for Europe to say we must comply but what about them?

Posted By Tony Brunskill Anwar, Sadly these type of incidents occur all to readily in the UK too. To tar "Europe" as poor performers is a little harsh. Some are undoubtedly worse but equally there are those that are better. The incident in Corfu is without doubt a tragedy but lets not overreact and condemn all holiday accommodations in all of the EU states. Regards Tony

Posted By B Smart Whilst I agree with Anwar, I'm afraid to say that you don't have to go abroad to face these hazards. Simply pick up any local/national newspaper on any given day of the week and you will find a similar story. B. Smart

Posted By Paul Leadbetter According to this recent HSE press release (http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2006/e06104.htm), 20-30 people die each year in this country from CO poisoning due to poorly maintained gas appliances. We should not rush, therefore, to castigate anyone else on the same issue. The words pot, kettle and black come to mind. Paul

Posted By Alexander Falconer UK stipulates CORGI, gas safety (installation & use) regs 1998, etc, etc which has reduced dramatically the number of CO deaths, however one death is still one too many! It is alleged that the tour operator conducted their own stringent H&S checks? wonder if this included checks by a corgi registered competent person?

Posted By Pete48 "instead of waiting on the real facts to come out they throw together some sort of absolute nonsense." This quote is taken from a post in this thread. Perhaps as users of this forum we should be more aware of committing the same sin with regard to this tragedy. I find such speculation most distressing wherever it occurs and wish it had not appeared on this forum.

Posted By Ken Taylor It is also notable that CO poisoning can occur with solid fuel fires as well as gas fires - so attention to flues and ventilation are essential there too.

Posted By Anwar Afzal Glad to know that there are strict safety laws in Greece but obviously they have been flouted and the consequence has been realised, but it is obvious that the enforcement of such laws are not being adhered to.

Posted By Pete48 Speculation on speculation. Where are you getting relevant facts from, the media? As to tour companies, they may well do inspections but they can only be snapshots. Speculate for a moment, if you wish, about any hotel anywhere in the world. You carry out an H&S inspection and find systems, compliance to and knowledge of local laws, records and no obvious physical defects at the time of your inspection, how would you fail the hotel and on what grounds? Conspiracy theory is often great fun but more often it is a mile off the mark. Why don't we wait until the report/ official investigation is published and then discuss the lessons that we will all be able to learn from yet another human tragedy.

Posted By Pete48 TBC, maybe it was not the correct answer for a company with operations beyond the UK? High moral position but maybe irrelevant. Did you make a comparison with the local laws and regs or did you just assume that the UK was bound to be better in both content and compliance?

Posted By Geoff Parkinson I think that every building using gas should be fitted with carbon monoxide detectors. If overseas, holiday companies should ensure these are fitted before signing up to use a hotel (either singular or as part of a chain). The detectors are simple to fit and not prohibitively expensive. It sounds a simplistic solution, but sometimes simple is what's best.

Posted By J Knight Hi Anwar, Just to add a point. 'They' don't make us follow their laws, and we can't make them follow ours. Europe issues directives, which are interpreted into local laws, and all legal systems are flawed, imperfect and enforced with varying consistency and effectiveness. I'm sure you already knew that, but it does answer a point you made in your posts. Yes. we have good gas safety laws in the UK, but in SHP this month there's a story about a gas fitter killing a 14 year old girl in Wales; its not the first such case in the UK, it won't be the last. The Greek authorities evidently feel that gas poisoning shouldn't happen, and like the UK, they use their imperfect and flawed legal system to try and ensure it doesn't happen. Tragedies happen because of complicated reasons, and one of the lessons of tragedies like this one is that however good systems are on paper, there's always going to be error. I suppose the aim is to reduce that error to the lowest practicable level, but it won't go away. Its no use blaming Greek laws, any more than there is a value in blaming HASAWA every time somebody falls over an unprotected edge in the UK, John

Posted By Kevin Thompson If Bob is right about the faulty boiler producing CO that is then picked up by the air conditioning unit outside the bungalow; one has to consider whether CO poisoning inside the bungalow was entirely foreseeable. For a start the boiler was enclosed and the air con unit located outside, there must have been an extremely high quantity of CO and practically no wind movement. Although a very sad outcome there may have actually been no laws broken.

Posted By Anwar Afzal Thank you all for your various veiws and opinion on this issue, and i would like to add that despite everything we go through here in the Uk to get our Directors, Managers and the staff on the ground to think safety, act safety and preach safety and they still look for short cuts, we still have the best safety systems in the world i am proud to say and it can only get better. There will always be one!!! but then we would be out of a job if there was'nt!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted By rjhills Did anyone notice the response of the Greek authorities??? No faffing about with CPS excuses about "no case to answer". Arrests and charges to be laid within a week. Possibility of approx 10yrs in prison! No 3rd world country this! Can we get the same quick justice for those killed at Ladbroke Grove? Remember the Barrow Council not even getting fined?? Because as a public authority the "fines would come out the ratepayers" If we had proper justice in Britain we would not be talking about "Fixed penalty fine", we would have a system which gives real justice to the people, instead of always finding excuses why the people who should be punished are not. Yet if a teenager hangs around a street he gets the undemocratic asbo. If we want to criticise the Greeks, we should also be willing to praise them for swiftly bringing justice to bear on the side of a bereaved family... a stark contrast to what the tube bombings victims have to go through!

Posted By Ken Taylor One concern about CO detectors that deterred people like RoSPA from calling for their installation under Building Regs, etc for some time was that people might decide to use them as a cheap substitute for regular servicing and maintenance of their heating appliances. Proper detectors are, of course, required rather than the cheap 'cardboard' type.