Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I want to start by warmly welcoming the members of the Stardust families who are here today. It has been a long and difficult road to justice but their perseverance, courage and deep love of their family members has brought us here to this historic, but long overdue, day.

It is less than a week since the jury in the Stardust inquest returned the verdicts that families and survivors have waited so long for - recognition that on that terrible night, on 14 February 1981, 48 young people were unlawfully killed. It is a date that will be forever associated with this country's worst ever fire tragedy - a tragedy that is seared into the Irish psyche. Such was the magnitude of the disaster, most people can remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they first heard about the horrific nightclub fire in Artane.

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the fast pace of the Government's response this week to the families' calls for a comprehensive and meaningful State apology for the litany of wrongs perpetrated against the victims over the course of four decades. It is also welcome that the Stardust families and their legal team were afforded the opportunity to have an input into what should be included in today's apology. The speed of the response is not only appropriate and proper; it is the very minimum that they deserve.

It makes a refreshing change to see the State doing the right thing when it comes to its treatment of Stardust families because never has the expression "Justice delayed is justice denied" been more applicable to any group of people than the Stardust relatives and survivors. Never have the victims of such a grave injustice had to fight for so long to vindicate the rights of their loved ones - so long, in fact, that many parents and relatives, despite campaigning for justice for more than half of their lives, did not live to witness this or last week's monumental verdicts of unlawful killing. They too, along with those who perished in the fire or were injured that night, are very much in our thoughts today.

Last week's verdicts represented a rare victory in the Stardust families' decades-long campaign for justice. Their journey has been one of false dawns, countless setbacks and bitter disappointments. The senior Dublin city coroner, Dr. Myra Cullinane, is owed a debt of gratitude for the impartial, respectful and sensitive manner in which these inquests were conducted. Equally, members of the jury have done this country an enormous public service by giving a year of their lives to sit through hours of complex evidence and often harrowing testimony. There is no doubt that they arrived at the correct verdict last week when they determined that all 48 victims had been unlawfully killed. However, in the past few days the relief and the joy that greeted these verdicts has given way to justifiable public anger that it has taken so long to get to this point, that many parents did not live to see this watershed moment, and that the suffering of the families and survivors was compounded by State inaction, deeply ingrained classism and an adversarial legal system that often seemed weighted in favour of the wealthy.

In 2019, when directing that there should be a new inquest, the then Attorney General, Mr. Séamus Woulfe, said there had been "an insufficiency of inquiry" at the original inquest in March 1982 as to how the deaths occurred. I suggest that "insufficiency of inquiry" is an understatement, to say the least. The latest inquest sat for 122 days, lasted almost a year and heard from over 370 witnesses. This is in stark contrast to the 1982 inquest which concluded after just five days with its findings confined to the medical causes of death, not the surrounding circumstances such as the cause of the fire. It makes one wonder how different things could have been for the families had the original inquest arrived at the same conclusion which was reached last week. Would such a verdict have influenced the final report of the Keane tribunal, which only months later delivered the devastating conclusion that the fire was probably started deliberately? Would it have prevented the owners of the Stardust from proceeding with their malicious damages case against Dublin Corporation which led to them receiving compensation of £580,000 in 1983? Would an unlawful killing verdict in 1982 have resulted in a speedier path to compensation for victims' families and those left with life-changing injuries? Today is about an official State apology, not redress. That may be a matter for another day and it is one that should be informed by the Stardust families' wishes, but it is worth pointing out that more value was put on the loss of a building than the loss of life. Appallingly, the Government compensation scheme paid bereaved parents just £7,500 for each child who died in the Stardust fire.

Detailed evidence on key issues that led to so many deaths and injuries, such as the status of fire exits, breaches of building regulations and insufficient staff training, was all available back then. As this evidence was fresh at the time, it is baffling that the jury in the most recent inquest at a remove of four decades was able to properly interrogate the facts and establish now what could not have been determined then. The fact that this did not happen at the time is a tragedy in and of itself. Parents would not only have known how their children died; they would have known why.

Instead, despite being paralysed with unimaginable grief, they were forced into a David versus Goliath battle with the State and its institutions. Abandoned by successive Governments, they were forced to take their search for justice for the streets. No campaign group in Ireland’s history have had to protest as much or for as long as they have. The have had to fight the State at every single turn, even for the most basic entitlements. They fought for the return of medical cards initially issued to those injured in the fire but later cruelly withdrawn. They fought for a memorial park in Coolock to ensure those who never came home would never be forgotten. They fought for a new inquiry into the cause of the fire only to see their hopes evaporate after several Government-sanctioned reviews.

Before last Thursday’s verdicts, the only significant victory secured by the Stardust campaigners was a finding in Paul Coffey’s 2009 report that there was no evidence for the probable arson conclusion reached by the Keane tribunal in 1982. The suggestion of arson heaped pain upon pain and cast unfounded suspicion on every person who attended the Stardust disco that fateful night. Understandably, this was seen by families as a case of victim-blaming at its most hurtful. The Dáil record was corrected to remove this damaging conclusion following publication of the Coffey report in 2009. Up until then the families and survivors were forced to live with this smear on their good names for 27 years. Neither this report nor a subsequent review of evidence by retired judge Pat McCartan recommended a new inquiry. However, undeterred by yet another disappointment - incredibly - the families picked themselves us and successfully made the case for a new inquest into the death of their loved ones. The striking of the probable arson theory from the public record in 2009, while welcome, did not resolve the issue of how the fire started. Last week’s inquests also confirmed what many had long suspected, namely that the fire was caused by an electrical fault.

Today’s apology must mean more than words. It must mark a turning point for reform in how victims of injustice are treated in this country. The Government must examine and change a culture in which victims of State wrongdoing are viewed with suspicion and met with official pushback and legal impediments when they challenge the authorities. Biases in the system must also be addressed in a serious way in order to provide equality before the law. The Stardust families must now be afforded the time and space to reflect on the events of the past week and decide where they want to go from here. While their sense of loss and pain will be lifelong, I sincerely hope last week’s verdicts and today’s State apology will bring some comfort and some help with the healing process. You should know today that this House and the entire country are behind you and that your loved ones will never be forgotten.

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