It's easy to be flippant about these things when it's an adult that gets hit but it's different when there are children. The fact is that once there is a hole in a fence, children will find their way onto the railway. Ultimately, accidents like this come down to personal responsibility this gets blurred when there are children involved.
This is simply not Irish Rail's fault - they seem to be very diligent about inspecting and maintaining the fence. But it really sounds like the Council, Irish Rail and Waterways Ireland need to work out a way round this issue. Perhaps if in the short-term the walkway was removed from the lock, this would help matters by removing the incentive to take the short-cut.
The problem with Ireland is that there will be an investigation that takes a year, a year applying for funding, another year doing design, a year for consultation a year for planning reviews, a year for tendering and then finally somebody puts up a bridge after somebody else has died in the interim. The whole thing will end up costing about 5 million euro for a 100,000 euro bridge.
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