Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Labour Party, on this momentous and poignant day for the survivors and the surviving families of the Stardust victims, I welcome all those in the Visitors Gallery today and express my deepest sympathies and condolences to you all and to your families, your friends and your communities on the appalling loss you suffered 43 years ago. I welcome the fact that at last we have seen a full and reserved State apology offered by the Taoiseach this afternoon. That apology comes following last Thursday's historic verdict, in the State’s longest running inquest, of unlawful killing, which has been so significant for all affected.

The length of the inquest hearing, of course, pales in comparison with the long quest for truth and justice for the 48 who never came home. Evidence heard during the inquest offers a tragic insight into the young lives lost that night, and the pen portraits were so powerful in bringing alive all those children, given some were children, and young people. So many desperately moving stories were told during the inquest, of devastated parents waiting to hear news of children who were not coming home, and of husbands, wives and fiancés who were able to identify their loved ones only by their wedding rings.

The jury heard heartbreaking personal stories. There was the story about Martina Keegan, who had brought a Valentine's Day card to the Stardust for her boyfriend, David Morton. That card was found the next morning outside the club, in water. Others, such as Richard Bennett, almost did not go into the Stardust on that awful night. He had been turned away for not wearing a tie but managed to procure one from someone else, and so he was in the Stardust on Valentine’s night in 1981 and he too lost his life. All those young people's lives were so tragically lost, cut short when going out for a night with friends and family, something we all do, and 48 of them never made it home.

It has been commented previously by others, including Charlie Bird, that if the majority of victims that night had been from another area of Dublin, their awful deaths and the awful tragedy might have been treated differently by the Government of the day. Indeed, the families, all of you, have suffered so much, not just the grief and trauma of the night itself but the aftermath of the failure of the State to support and stand by the families and communities. Injustices have included the payment of compensation to the Butterly family, which others have mentioned. The failure of the State and the sense of injustice have compounded the awful grief and trauma suffered by all the families. Nobody should be denied justice or have to endure the hardship and the State failures we have seen unfold in the years following the disaster.

We know that the number of victims far exceeds those 48 who so tragically died. So many others were injured, so many families bereaved and devastated and so many first responders traumatised, with so many physical and mental scars and impacts felt by so many. Surviving families have spoken so movingly of the devastating effect the tragedy has had on their lives, and so many have had to grapple for so long with the decades-long campaign for justice and answers.

I want to pay particular tribute to one of the campaigners for justice, a wonderful woman I have been privileged to know for many years, who lives in my constituency, Dublin Bay South, namely, Betty Bissett, whose family are from Ringsend and Irishtown and whose 18-year-old daughter, Carol Bissett, was one of those who died so tragically in the Stardust. Speaking to Kitty Holland, Betty told of how the night of the tragedy marked the day when she and her family found themselves "in someone else’s nightmare". She spoke about how she had not been allowed to see Carol, who was in hospital for three days before she died. Betty has spoken of her devastation because she “wasn’t there to hold her hand and tell her how I love her." She said she had been given back Carol's coat and a handful of her jewellery in a plastic bag. That awful indignity compounded the awful trauma suffered by the Bissett family and so many others. I was privileged to be in Betty's house on Saturday with others and to hear directly from her about her enormous relief that a formal apology would at last be given in the Dáil this week, and that was after they had met the Taoiseach along with other families. I want to pay tribute to Betty and her daughter Liz beside her, to all the other campaigners in the Stardust Victims and Relatives Committee and to incredible campaigners such as Antoinette Keegan, Gertrude Barrett and Brigid McDermott for their courage in their grief.

I commend you all on the fortitude and resilience you have shown over the past four decades. Many champions of the campaign, like Christine and John Keegan, have sadly passed away, but many of you, including Betty and Liz, have joined us in the Gallery to watch today’s proceedings. We all hope you will have some comfort and solace from today.

Whatever consolation can be offered by this apology and the important inquest verdict, it comes more than four decades too late. Sadly, we know that there was ample opportunity over the years to address the awful suffering of survivors and that active steps were taken to evade accountability. The horrific deaths and injuries suffered at the Stardust were compounded by the disrespect and callous treatment of the families and the flawed and deeply wrong conclusions of the Keane report. The cruel conclusion of arson cast a dark shadow for far too long over the memories of 48 blameless young people and all the others there that night.

The later 2009 Coffey report, which at last rejected that arson finding, was edited to remove a line accepting that a new inquiry was necessary if it was the only way of placing on the public record a finding that was based on evidence. But for a freedom of information request, it is likely that that important line in the report would never have come to light. The effect of the deletion was that a full, robust and honest apology did not issue in 2009 when it should have. We again saw a step back in 2017. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied. For all of the Stardust families and communities, justice has come very slowly. The true facts that led to the historic decision by the then Attorney General, Mr. Justice Séamus Woulfe, to hold a new inquest were uncovered by the tireless campaigning of survivors and surviving relatives, supported by individuals such as Charlie Bird and my former Labour Party colleague, Tommy Broughan, who spoke so movingly in the Dáil in 2009 in the wake of the Coffey report and pointed out that, on some streets in Artane, every second house had a family connection to one of the tragic victims or survivors of the event. He stated: "The scars relating to what happened that night are still deeply etched across our community and have been made worse by the appallingly shabby and at times almost inhuman way the Stardust victims and relatives have been treated". The road to justice should not have been so hard.

As the leader of an Opposition party that has served in government and on behalf of the Labour Party, I wish to join the Taoiseach and every other Member of the House in offering a heartfelt apology to the Stardust families. We hear you, we believe you and we are profoundly sorry, not only for the tragic deaths of your dear loved ones, but also for your subsequent battle for truth, which lasted for four decades and should never have been so difficult. Of course, we know that no apology, no matter how robust or fulsome, can turn back time. It cannot bring back those 48 children and young people whose futures were stolen in 1981.

What can change now, though, is the State's attitude to those who suffer a wrong and to society as a whole. Today is a day for apology, recognition and acknowledgment, but over future days, we must see fresh engagement on other issues, for example, redress and investigation, to ensure that no family will ever have to endure what you have gone through. We know that it is the role of the State to place the well-being of the people above all else and that we must do better to ensure that no family has to go through this again.

I will conclude by acknowledging the immense work of Dr. Myra Cullinane, the coroner, who handled the inquest with such sensitivity. I commend and pay tribute to all of the Stardust families and survivors. This day belongs to you. You fought so hard for the memory of your 48 loved ones. I hope that today's apology will give you some closure. It was good to hear the names of the 48 spoken again in this House. They will be forever remembered here. Indeed, all of us of a certain age remember where we were when the news broke. I was 12, nearly a teenager. All of us in Dublin and across the country who heard the news continue to check fire escapes wherever we go. I am now the mother of teenagers myself and I can only imagine the horrific heartbreak you are still enduring so many years on. We are truly sorry. You have suffered such appalling loss.

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