Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I warmly congratulate our wonderful football team for their outstanding victory last night and I wish them well in Lyon on Sunday.

Last Valentine's Day, during the general election campaign, was the 35th anniversary of the horrific Stardust nightclub fire in which 48 young people, mainly teenagers, died and more than 200 young people, mainly citizens in my constituency, were seriously injured. Over the past 35 years, the Stardust Relatives' and Victims Committee, courageously led by Ms Antoinette Keegan, Ms Chrissie Keegan and Ms Gertrude Barrett, has fought for justice for the victims and the families. The committee has been in contact with the Tánaiste many times in her capacity as Minister for Justice and Equality.

The Keane tribunal report in 1982 severely criticised Paddy and Eamon Butterly, the owner and manager of the Stardust, for their reckless disregard for the safety of the people on the premises but its conclusion of arson outraged the communities on the north side of the city. Despite Justice Keane's severe criticism of the Butterlys and Dublin Corporation and a huge file being sent to An Garda Síochána, no prosecution was ever taken against the owners or Dublin Corporation. Since the late 1990s, the conclusions of the Keane tribunal have been systematically demolished by the finding of new and unassessed evidence. In 2001, for example, a brilliant investigation called "They Never Came Home", after the song by Christy Moore, carried out by Tony McCullough, editor of Northside People, and his colleague, Neil Fetherstonhaugh, found that there were major deficiencies in the electrical and heating systems of the building and eyewitness accounts which had not been taken into account during the Keane investigation. A number of "Prime Time" programmes on the 20th and 25th anniversary of the fire also seriously undermined the credibility of the Keane tribunal. A distinguished local northside scientist, Ms Geraldine Foy, also carried out a detailed investigation in 2004 and collated new decisive evidence. She found the existence of a first floor store room full of flammable cleaning liquids, of which the Keane tribunal appeared to be completely unaware.

Based on some of those discoveries, I called for a new commission of investigation on the 25th anniversary in 2006. I am renewing that call today. In July 2008, the former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who lived across the road from the nightclub, appointed Mr. Paul Coffey to carry out a study of the papers of the Keane tribunal and to look again at the evidence. Although Mr. Coffey's report exonerated the young people in that it found that arson was not the cause, Mr. Coffey did not ask for a new commission of investigation. However, he said in his draft report that he accepted that a new inquiry was necessary. During the 2011 general election campaign the Taoiseach, accompanied by former Deputy Terence Flanagan, gave a commitment to the Stardust Relatives' and Victims Committee that there would be a new commission of investigation but over the past five years, the former Minister for Justice and Equality, former Deputy Alan Shatter, and the Tánaiste have stonewalled on this. The Tánaiste can bring closure to this matter, just as happened in the case of the Widgery report and the Hillsborough disaster. She can ease the awful pain that hundreds of families in my constituency have suffered for the past 35 years.

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