A woman has expressed her anger after her father, who is disabled and uses a wheelchair, was left on a fire escape during a fire drill at IKEA.
The incident happened at the furniture chain's huge Belfast store on Wednesday morning
"They had no clue at all," Fionnuala told Belfast Live.
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"I'm just shocked in this day and age when you think there's a bit more disability awareness, with a massive chain like that."
The fire alarm at the store went off at about 10.30am on Wednesday, which led to an evacuation.
"A member of staff comes over and ushers us towards the exit which in the upstairs bit is a big metal fire escape with a bit of a wheelchair refuge thing," Fionnuala said.
"There was a little box which said to touch it for help so we did that and a member of staff came along.
"We asked her what we were meant to do and she just said 'oh someone who has training will be along in a minute' and she just went and we were just left there.
"I wasn't looking at my watch so I don't know how long we were there but eventually a man came along and said it was a drill and that we'd be allowed back in in about 20 minutes."
However, that posed problems for Fionnuala's dad, who has health complications due to a brain injury.
"We were standing there with no coats or anything, my dad's very disabled and he's been in the hospital twice with pneumonia this year already, he's very vulnerable" she said.
"We were allowed in then but only because I kicked up a fuss."
In the aftermath, Fionnuala said that staff didn't seem to understand why she was frustrated with their response, with one member of staff providing a bit more information.
"I said to him that this just wasn't acceptable and what would they do if it was an actual fire?," she said.
"And the guy said they had an evacuation chair, but it was new and no-one in the store had actually been trained on it, so the fire service would have needed to get you down.
"But as I said, the fire service wouldn't have had a clue we were there, because we were just left.
"No-one had any training, no-one had any clue what to do and you were just going to leave us out in the cold."
Fionnuala said she wanted to highlight the situation in order to try and shine a light on the importance of accessibility for the diasbled.
"We've never had anything like this before with my dad, you'd maybe expect it in a smaller local business that doesn't have the room to be more accessible," she said.
"We don't take him out to many places because it can be quite difficult with him but you expect a big chain like that to be a bit more aware.
"I think there probably just needs to be an apology from them and a bit of learning done."
An IKEA Belfast Spokesperson said: "The safety of our customers and co-workers is always our highest priority at IKEA.
"Yesterday a fire drill took place, which was conducted as part of our continuous assessments for fire safety within the store.
"During the fire drill, which lasted 14 minutes, we understand that there was a situation whereby additional co-worker support was needed to conduct a wheelchair evacuation.
"We would like to apologise to the customers involved and would like to assure them that as part of our normal practice following on a fire drill, we have taken this into account when looking at where improvements are needed."
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