Accident or arson? What are the Stardust families hoping a new inquiry can achieve 25 years after the tragedy? Liam Reid explains
A quarter of a century after the Stardust tragedy in which 48 young people died, memories are still raw for many across the northside of Dublin city.
Helped by an RTÉ television Prime Time programme and a drama documentary, the campaign by the victims' families on various unresolved issues has been gathering momentum throughout the year. It now has the undoubted potential to impact on the general election campaign on Dublin's northside.
In September, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Tánaiste Michael McDowell met representatives of the victims to discuss the two key unresolved issues for the Stardust Victims' Committee, in an attempt to defuse the growing controversy.
The first issue, DNA testing to positively identify five bodies from the fire buried in Sutton cemetery, has now been agreed to by the Government.
The second and more central issue for all of the families - the call for a new inquiry into the fire - poses much greater difficulties for Mr Ahern and his Government.
A three-week delay by the Government in making a decision on holding a new inquiry led to the protests outside the Dáil yesterday.
In the Dáil yesterday, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte was succinct and to the point in describing the issue at the centre of the families' concerns: "Accident or arson?"
The original tribunal of inquiry, under Mr Justice Ronan Keane, found that the likely cause of the fire was arson, a conclusion that many of the victims challenge.
The reason for the concern is two-fold. Firstly, the arson conclusion casts the victims potentially as the cause of their own deaths.
Secondly, such a conclusion absolves the owners of the Stardust from responsibility, despite the fact that some of the escape doors were padlocked.
The basic position of the families and their representatives is that the tribunal failed to take into account evidence that pointed to the fire starting accidentally due to an electrical fault.
The victims' group produced an expert report based on this in early 2004 and submitted it to the Department of Justice. The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, said he was open to the possibility of a new inquiry, but only if new evidence emerged that was not available to the original tribunal. It is a position he has since maintained consistently.
Experts from the national forensic laboratory examined the 2004 submission and advised there was no new evidence and he rejected the request.
Earlier this year, as part of the 25th anniversary, the victims' committee and its solicitor, Greg O'Neill, commissioned new research from a range of experts. They included Prof Michael Delichatsios, Tony Gillick, Robin Knox and pathologist Dr Derek Carson.
The evidence, submitted to the Government in July, with additional information supplied in September, focused on witness statements suggesting the fire started eight minutes earlier than believed and that it was caused by an electrical fault in a store room.
At the September meeting with the victims' representatives, Mr Ahern is reported to have given a commitment to respond by the end of October, and the report was again passed on to forensics experts at the State laboratories.
Mr Ahern is careful to use sympathetic and conciliatory language when discussing calls for a new inquiry. He stated yesterday that time was needed to allow the State experts to examine fully the new submission.
This new submission will again have to meet the requirement that it contains evidence that was not available to the original tribunal in 1981.
It is a high hurdle to pass, but there is a compelling reason for the Government to set that bar high.
The main concern is the precedent a new inquiry would set, and the possibility that similar demands would be made in relation to other past inquiries.
Mr Ahern knows this. But he also knows the potential political repercussions from refusing a new inquiry.
The Stardust victims, their families and friends are concentrated in the key constituency of Dublin North Central, and to a lesser extent in Dublin North East, Dublin North West and Mr Ahern's own Dublin Central base.
Fianna Fáil is facing challenges to four of its eight seats in these areas, and having the Stardust inquiry as an electoral issue is a scenario Mr Ahern will be keen to avoid.