When Amy Dutil-Wall was pregnant with her second child, her eldest, Estlin, was convinced she was going to get a baby sister to play with.
"She would go around telling everybody 'my little sister is in mummy's tummy'," says Amy, laughing at the memory.
"We had no idea what we were having, but Estlin even had the name picked out - Lucy. Then out popped little brother Mannix and she completely forgot about the imaginary sister. She was just obsessed with her baby brother and loved him to pieces. She wanted to be a part of every little bit of his care, and she was, for 10 weeks."
Any day now, Amy will give birth to her and her husband Vincent's third child.
They know what they're having, a girl, and from the moment they found out, they knew what they would call her. Lucy. But it will be a bittersweet moment when they bring home their baby daughter, knowing she'll never meet the big sister who named her, who would have loved her and who longed to play with her.
On Wednesday, March 15, 2017, Vincent Wall was driving Estlin to crèche from their home in Ennistymon, Co Clare, when a truck, travelling in the opposite direction, moved to pull out from behind a bus. The manoeuvre prompted a chain of events, resulting in a horrific collision that has left Vincent with a permanent brain injury and claimed the life of Estlin, who died just nine days shy of her fourth birthday.
Amy Dutil-Wall with her partner Vincent Wall, and daughter Estlin, who lost her life in the tragic crash
This week, truck driver and farmer Senan O'Flaherty (63), of Lower Gowerhass, Cooraclare, Co Clare, was fined €750 for careless driving causing the death of Estlin, €750 for careless driving causing serious bodily harm to Vincent, and issued with a four-year-driving ban.
"We knew full well there was absolutely nothing they could do to him that would bring Estlin back or make us feel any better. But this has somehow managed to make us feel worse," says Amy (35).
"I feel like our world has been turned upside down again. How do you come up with a figure like €750 for the death of a child in a car collision? It's an insult. It feels like we've been slapped in the face.
"Throughout the whole judicial process I've prided myself on trying to remain as composed as possible. I wanted to sit in court as Estlin's mother and keep my head held high and represent her. But when the judge said he was very aware of the hardship he was imposing on the truck driver, who wouldn't be able to earn a living for four years... I lost it. I said loudly, 'that's all Estlin got - four years' and I was shushed."
The couple also reveal they've been left reeling by the lack of remorse shown by O'Flaherty.
"He [O'Flaherty] never made eye contact with us, never looked troubled or sad, we've never seen him shed a tear.
"I know I'll never know what's in his heart but it would have meant something to us to feel that he had the slightest understanding of the damage he's done."
In a strange twist of fate, the three people who were first on the scene of the collision were Vincent's GP, his best friend and another friend who works as a nurse. The friend was able to phone his mother who went immediately to Amy's home to tell her there had been an accident.
The GP, Dr John Duncan, worked for more than 30 minutes doing CPR with Estlin. His efforts meant that when the ambulance arrived, paramedics were able to get the little girl's heart-rate going again. Tragically, the extent of Estlin's injuries were life-ending. But it wasn't until the Saturday night that she passed away in her mother's arms after her life-support machine was turned off in Temple Street Hospital in Dublin. Amy not only got the chance to say good-bye but also was able to sign organ donation forms, ensuring Estlin's lungs and kidneys would go on to save two lives: a boy suffering from Cystic Fibrosis and a 60-year-old on dialysis.
"That GP didn't give up," says Amy. "Without him we would never have had the time in Temple Street, never been able to do the organ donation.
"I held Estlin and sang to her as I felt her last heartbeat."
Both Amy and Vincent (41) put a huge amount of effort into their Victim Impact Statements. Vincent had been in an induced coma during Estlin's funeral and wasn't physically able to be given the news his daughter was dead until five weeks later.
Today he still doesn't know if he'll ever work again and simple tasks, even writing his thoughts down on paper, remain difficult.
"But I don't feel like we were listened to," says Amy. "The judge said something about how Estlin died immediately by the road. Did he not pay attention to everything I said about Temple Street? The organ donation? How I held her body in my arms until it went cold?
"I feel like we sacrificed so much emotional energy for nothing in the end."
She says ultimately the decision will be made by the DPP, but that she and Vincent would support an appeal, despite feeling their faith in the justice system has been severely shaken by the leniency of the sentence.
For now, their attention is firmly on the imminent arrival of baby Lucy and Mannix (3). Amy is frank about how dark and unrelenting the grieving process has been for them. "Vinny has never felt right about the fact that he survived and Estlin didn't. He's always going to wish it was the opposite way round," she says.
"But he's finally gotten past the point of wishing they had both died."
She continues: "In the darkest moments of your grief, you just want the pain to end and you know that the pain only ends when you end. But we could never leave Mannix thinking that he wasn't enough.
"There have been moments that have been bad enough where I could have decided not to go on, but something has kept me here, fighting to find the joy in life that I know I still deserve to have, and that's Mannix.
"We're delighted to be having a girl," says Amy. "Estlin was the epitome of a little princess and to have all that ripped out of our lives - all of a sudden there's no more pink in the laundry and the Barbies are collecting dust - to think we might get a bit of that back is wonderful."
She continues: "Everything in our lives is now coloured with loss.
"The happiest days of our lives are now also the hardest because there's always going to be someone missing."
