Families express relief at findings

FAMILY MEMBERS of the 48 Stardust fire victims expressed relief yesterday as an independent report ruled – 28 years after the tragedy – that there was no evidence to prove the cause of the fire was arson.

“We actually made history today and it is a victory for the 48 victims,” said Antoinette Keegan who lost her sisters Martina and Mary in the 1981 Artane fire.

“We never believed it was arson and it is now recognised,” she said.

The families said they were satisfied with the verdict even though it indicated that there would be no new inquiry. Bríd McDermott, whose three children died in the fire, was very emotional when she heard the outcome. “We were right. We knew from the very beginning but we had no way of proving it.

“It will never bring back any of the 48 children and not mine, William, Marcella and George, whom I still miss very much. But at least I can say to them now they will get justice,” she said.

“I am overjoyed, at last we got what we wanted,” said Patricia Kennedy whose 17-year-old daughter Marie died in the fire.

But relatives were annoyed at the delay and campaigning it had taken to get this verdict since the 1982 tribunal ruled the cause was “probable arson”.

“These families have been treated the worst of any victims’ group in the State that I have ever come across and its long overdue that that injustice is remedied,” said solicitor for the families Greg O’Neill. “After the first tribunal we were to get on with life and forget about it. But we couldn’t, we knew they were wrong,” Ms McDermott said.

“It happened and we can’t undo it. But if we had got justice years ago we could have reached some semblance of normality out of such horrendous grief,” said Gertrude Barrett, whose son Michael died in the 1981 fire.

“That amount of years is more than a slice of your life. It was the ripples of that tragedy and what it did to families, to young people and to little children. It turned homes into turmoil and nobody ever cared,” Ms Barrett added.

“It was still an underlying cancer that didn’t seem to be getting better. Today hopefully this is the beginning of getting the whole lot sorted out,” Ms Kennedy said.

Antoinette Keegan said she hoped the Government implemented recommendations quickly and that they would not “have the same fight on our hands”.

Yesterday Mr O’Neill said it was up to the Government to implement the report’s recommendations and remove the finding of arson. But he said this “opens a door that was closed to the families”. A statement by the families said the original finding of arson had “deterred them from pursuing remedies through the courts”. Mr O’Neill said the issue had now fallen “on to the lap of the Government”.

The largest payout in relation to the tragedy was almost £600,000 awarded to Stardust nightclub owners Eamon and Patrick Butterly after they sued Dublin Corporation for compensation for malicious damage on the basis of a probable arson theory.

The full text of the Stardust report is available at www.irishtimes.com/indepth/