The Department of Justice will examine the Prime Time programme on the Stardust disaster and consider the issues it raised, according to a Government spokesman. Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent, reports.
He added that the Taoiseach would meet victims and victims' relatives to consider any new matters that had arisen. The Prime Time programme featured three fire experts who questioned the conclusions reached by the tribunal of inquiry into the disaster, particularly that the fire was probably started deliberately.
On Tuesday, before the programme was broadcast, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice said any new evidence would be brought to the Forensic Science Laboratory. However, the families of the Stardust victims want the existing evidence re-examined, according to their lawyer.
Greg O'Neill said that the families were not seeking to bring forward new forensic evidence about the cause of the fire, but were asking that the existing evidence be re-examined in the light of best available international expertise.
He also said that crucial evidence was not made available to the original tribunal, presided over by Mr Justice Keane, at the appropriate time. This was the list of the contents of the store-room, which contained drums of floor-wax, furniture polish, and other combustible material.
"The Government has said this was given to the tribunal, and it was, but it was handed over in November, after all the tests were carried out in June," Mr O'Neill told The Irish Times. "The experts were never asked about it. The tribunal was skewed. You had a situation where material that should have been furnished at the outset was not."
Following extensive tests and exhaustive analysis of all the evidence, Mr Justice Keane said in his report: "The cause of the fire is not known and may never be known. There is no evidence of an accidental origin; and equally no evidence that the fire was started deliberately."
He then drew on the evidence put forward by the five experts, three of whom thought it most likely the fire was started deliberately, while two were not inclined to rule out the possibility of electrical fault.
Given the lack of any more definite evidence, and the majority opinion of the experts, Mr Justice Keane concluded: "In these circumstances, the tribunal has come to the conclusion that the more probable explanation of the fire is that it was caused deliberately. It is also satisfied that it was probably started in the west alcove and not in the roof space."
However, Mr O'Neill said there is now more evidential basis for the proposition of an accidental outbreak of fire in the Stardust storeroom than for the tribunal's theory that it was caused by arson.
Meanwhile, a man who was in the ballroom on the night of the fire contacted The Irish Times to say he agreed with the findings of the Prime Time programme supporting the theory that the fire began in the storeroom.
Gerry Sammon said: "I wasn't aware that witnesses and the tribunal had thought the fire had started at the seats in the back to the left of the main bar. I believe because quite a few people had their backs to the bar they didn't see the fire until then.
"I was on the dance floor facing the bar. I have said it numerous times to people that the first time I saw the fire start was at the right-hand side of the bar as you look at it from the dance floor. It went from ground level and then shot up to the ceiling.
"I made a statement to the Coolock police and also drew a picture of what I saw. Surely they keep records of something like this?"