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

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for this brief opportunity to speak on this important matter. The 37th anniversary of the Stardust tragedy will be on 14 February 2018. The horrific inferno on that night stole the lives of 48 of our young people and left 214 others injured. It occurred in a dance hall with chained and blocked exits. Earlier this week, journalist Charlie Bird brought us back to that terrible night in an RTÉ documentary in which we witnessed again the enduring distress of the victims and their relatives.

In January, I brought a motion before Dáil Éireann calling for the establishment a new commission of investigation into the St. Valentine’s night inferno. My motion was supported by Independents 4 Change, People Before Profit, Solidarity, Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, the Social Democrats and other left-leaning Independents. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Finian McGrath, despite being deeply aware of the work of the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee during the earlier part of his political career, sadly turned his back on the families who lost loved ones and instead supported the Government’s amendment to the motion. My motion was defeated by 94 votes to 50 and the version amended by the Government, which effectively called for a Coffey review, part 2, was passed. On 7 March 2017, the Government agreed to the appointment of Pat McCartan, a retired judge, to assess any new or updated evidence uncovered by the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee. This assessment began on 27 March 2017.

I have now submitted another motion to the Ceann Comhairle rejecting the McCartan report and calling for an immediate commission of investigation. I am very pleased that the new motion is supported by my Independents4Change colleagues, Deputies Joan Collins and Thomas Pringle, and by People Before Profit, Solidarity, Sinn Féin and the Labour Party.

On 17 October, Judge McCartan submitted his report to the Department of Justice and Equality and his conclusion in section 5.106 was that, "there is no new or updated evidence disclosed in the meaning of the terms of this Assessment and no new enquiry is warranted". This conclusion was announced publicly and to the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee three weeks later on 7 November, and the feeling since that date has been one of devastation, disappointment and despair for the people most affected by the Stardust disaster.

I am also very disappointed to see that Judge McCartan, my predecessor as a Deputy for Dublin North-East, has not recommended a new commission of investigation into the tragedy that has changed the history of our constituency since that fateful night in 1981. Had the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, and the Government supported my motion in January, the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee would have had an opportunity, through a commission under the McDowell legislation, for final closure, but instead they were subjected again to an unnecessary Coffey part 2-type examination.

I feel very sad for Ms Antoinette Keegan, Ms Chrissie Keegan, Ms Gertrude Barrett, Mr. Maurice Frazer, Mr. Eugene Kelly, Ms Patricia Kennedy, Mr. Eddie Kennedy, Mr. Paul O'Sullivan, Mr. Jimmy Fitzpatrick and the McDermott family, Bridget, June, Selina and Louise, most of whom along with some others are present with us in the Gallery tonight. They are very welcome. I had always hoped that we would have justice at last for these citizens similar to what recently happened with the Hillsborough disaster for the people of Liverpool and earlier with the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday for the people of Derry. Seeking justice for the relatives and victims of the Stardust disaster still remains unfinished business but the Dáil colleagues who have signed the new motion and I will not shirk from pursuing the completion of this fight for justice.

I reject Judge McCartan's report because I always wanted a full commission of investigation under the 2004 legislation. The terms of reference in the Government's amendment for the McCartan assessment were far too narrow and I fear that those terms of reference were set up by the Department of Justice and Equality to produce this negative result. The record of the last almost 37 years is that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have simply never wanted a full, transparent and open investigation into the events of that night and - very importantly - the prior conditions which shaped those events.

Wide-ranging forensic research was and continues to be needed and the onus should not be on the Relatives and Victims Committee alone to produce such research. When one thinks of crime reviews, who would ask a committee of volunteers to carry out, and on their own stand over, a forensic investigation? If we saw that in a crime review, we would consider it an outrageous demand to be made on any committee or any voluntary group of citizens.

My office has been contacted a number of times by a distinguished researcher who also submitted evidence and analysis to Judge McCartan but who claims that this evidence was disregarded as he is not a member of the committee. Judge McCartan's interpretation of his narrow terms only seemed to allow him to examine new evidence from the committee.

The terms of reference for the assessment were, of course, linked to the programme for Government statement that "full regard will be had to any new evidence which emerges which would be likely to definitely establish the cause of the fire at Stardust". The Government amendment to my January motion stated:

calls on the Government to meet with the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee regarding the new and updated evidence they have uncovered since reviewing Judge Keane's Report of the Tribunal of Inquiry on the fire at the Stardust, Artane, Dublin in 2006, to have that new and updated evidence assessed urgently by an independent person who has the trust of the families; and

if the independent assessment confirms the existence of new evidence, calls on the Government to immediately establish a Commission of Investigation.

As other speakers have said, this seems to have been interpreted by Judge McCartan as meaning that only research carried out by researchers who reported to the committee was to be included. The research that was produced was originally compiled for the Paul Coffey review and later reorganised and expanded for the Judge McCartan review. The research, while very important, is however, only one strand of information or line of inquiry available to investigators on the disastrous circumstances of St. Valentine's Day 1981 in Artane.

There are several other avenues of research which Judge McCartan could have deeply explored had he been appointed to lead a full commission of investigation, as those of us on this side of the House wanted. A seminal outstanding work on the Stardust was produced by the distinguished editor of the Northside People, Mr. Tony McCullagh and his distinguished colleague, Mr. Neil Fetherstonhaugh, in 2001. That work, They Never Came Home: The Stardust Story, profoundly influenced my own thinking on the Stardust and the references to electrical faults in the complex in the months preceding the disaster raised very serious questions about the operation of the club and the attitude of the local authority, Dublin Corporation, and the fire authorities to building by-laws and fire safety.

In 2006 Ms Rita O'Reilly and the RTÉ "Prime Time" team challenged the fundamental thesis of the Keane conclusions that the fire began in the west alcove. The book and the RTÉ programme led many readers and viewers to seriously question the 1982 report of the Keane tribunal and conclude that a new inquiry was merited and essential.

Many other witnesses have come forward with interesting evidence of their experience of visits to the Stardust in the months and weeks immediately before the fire. The then local and national politicians and Dublin Corporation officials of the day were familiar with the complex, including the former Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern, who lived across the road, and many would have known the venue at first hand by attending local functions at the complex. Dublin Corporation's Christmas party was held there only a few months before the disaster.

New insights have also been provided recently by fire and engineering experts such as Mr. Paul Giblin, who has been in contact with my office. Mr. Giblin's essential thesis is that fire investigation and fire dynamics research have greatly advanced since 1981. The development of IT and computer graphics has given unique new insights into how fires start and spread, as is apparent in the investigation into the recent Grenfell Tower fire tragedy. As almost 40 years have passed, constituents are baffled as to how Judge McCartan could make any decision without consulting such expertise. As colleagues around me have said, it is astonishing and bewildering. On that very point also, the McCartan assessment is fatally flawed and must be rejected.

The dismissive attitude of sections of Judge McCartan's report to the research and conclusions of the committee's work was uncalled for and unfair, especially given the general volunteer nature of the research undertaken over many years. Many constituents are deeply upset by the rude and dismissive characterisation of important aspects of the committee's report.

Judge McCartan is critical of the committee's reliance on the Keane tribunal and Coffey review, and absence of new avenues of research, but he seems to have believed that the terms of reference for his assessment made it impossible for him to explore the other lines of inquiry, including those I have referenced. I believe he could and should have moved outside these narrow parameters for the assessment and at least asked for the opinion of others acquainted with the Stardust tragedy on the research compiled for the committee. If he felt that research needed to be stronger to justify a new tribunal, as he indicates in his conclusions, he could surely have evaluated it in the context of the overall research already done on the Stardust and in light of the latest fire investigation research.

The key conclusion, of course, of the McCartan report is 5.106, in which he rejects the calling of a new inquiry. In the executive summary of the report, point 1.2 states, "This is the third assessment of evidence into the Stardust Fire." This is somewhat disingenuous as the terms of reference were clearly too narrow for it to be defined as "assessment of evidence" when as I have mentioned, many other avenues of evidence could have been explored by the judge. Mr. Paul Coffey made a somewhat broader assessment which is one reason he provided the Ahern Government with the option of a full commission of investigation, which neither of the two Ministers mentioned tonight. Mr. Coffey said that under certain circumstances there should be a new commission of inquiry and the former Taoiseach, Mr. Ahern, could have gone down that avenue.

Point 1.5 of the McCartan report lays out the principal findings of the assessment as acknowledging that there were differences "between the first and second version of the Coffey Report", but Judge McCartan believes that these did not water down the committee findings despite that. A total of 17 issues were examined in the McCartan assessment and the report states that "Much of the material presented to this Assessment involved proposing a theory as to the cause of the fire". However, Judge McCartan decided that just one of the issues, "could be considered new or updated evidence", and that was the phone call by an eyewitness, Ms Brenda Kelly, to which Deputy Boyd Barrett referred.

9 o’clock

Here, Judge McCartan confirms that: "It is evident that the fire was in the roof space at a stage earlier than that fixed by the Keane Report". That is a remarkable finding and echoes the profound and long-held belief of the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee. Given this statement, however, along with the tone of parts of the assessment, I cannot accept that this should be the last word on the Stardust tragedy. It does not give closure and it certainly does not give justice for the 48 innocent lives lost.

Sections 5.57 to 5.60 on the evidence of an electrical start to the fire are by far the weakest sections of the assessment and no effort was made to evaluate forensically the Stardust committee’s assertions and earlier other evidence on dangerous electrical systems at the Stardust Club, which is very evident in Tony McCullagh and Neil Fetherstonhaugh's book. Likewise, sections 5.68 to 5.76 of the report, which I have before me, on evidences relating to the "Five Dead Males in the North Alcove" seems to me to miss the key point of this aspect of this terrible tragedy. Those sections remind me of speeches I made over a decade ago when I set out the reasons I believed the conclusions of the Keane report were untrustworthy, unfair and unsafe. A key one of those reasons was the use by Keane of the Fire Research Station of the UK Department of the Environment, which many constituents believed was hopelessly compromised because that agency had also worked for Dublin Corporation.

In sections 5.13 and 5.14, Judge McCartan explores the issues around information that is new evidence and information that supports a new theory as to the cause of the fire and says that only new evidence can support the calling of a commission of investigation. He concludes that unless such new evidence or evidence that was not properly considered by Keane or Coffey can be produced, no new inquiry is warranted. However, had Judge McCartan widened his terms of reference or took the most scope, even within the terms of reference of the assessment, surely there is such evidence and it does justify a new commission of investigation under the 2004 Act.

Many Deputies referred to the Stardust relatives' and victims' long struggle for answers and justice. It is reminiscent, as others have said, of the tragedies of Bloody Sunday 1972 and of Hillsborough in 1989. Both of those awful tragedies had earlier inquiries - Widgery in the case of Derry, the Hillsborough inquests and also tribunals - which made totally unjust and unsatisfactory findings for the people of Derry and the people of Liverpool. However, following tremendously focused and valiant campaigns by relatives and survivors of those disasters, which were reminiscent of the campaign of our constituents who are in the Gallery, the families and communities in Derry and Liverpool involved in those tragedies eventually did get justice and closure. Likewise, it is only fair that the single greatest tragedy in our city’s recent history be afforded the same respect.

Many people commented on the different phases of the struggle, first to get very basic compensation in the era of John Rodgers and the then Tánaiste, Dick Spring, and then the campaign to get the beautiful Stardust Memorial Park. I used to dash out of work to go on the picket with Antoinette, Chrissy and their friends outside the office of the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, who eventually came up with €500,000 to give us the Stardust Memorial Park.

In the lead-up to the Coffey review we had seven long years of struggle including many meetings with the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell. The subsequent submission by the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee entitled Nothing But the Truth in 2007 to the then Minister, Michael McDowell, who was also Tánaiste, was another turning point in their struggle.

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