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

At 11 a.m., a large number of us marched to the Office of the Attorney General, Mr. Seamus Woulfe, to deliver an astonishing 48,000 signed postcards asking for a new inquest into the Stardust tragedy of 14 February 1981. Those 48,000 signatures are the culmination of the heroic Truth campaign begun by the Stardust Relatives and Victims Committee, which has been courageously led over the years by Ms Antoinette Keegan, her mother Chrissie, Ms Gertrude Barrett, Ms Bridget McDermott and Mr. Eugene Kelly. I welcome them all to the Public Gallery today. We were accompanied by some distinguished Irish citizens, including the great musician Christy Moore, famous journalist Charlie Bird and many others. I commend our Sinn Féin colleagues and especially Ms Lynn Boylan, MEP, on her Trojan work with the committee on this campaign.

As the Taoiseach will remember, St. Valentine's Day 2019 will mark the 38th anniversary of the appalling Stardust nightclub tragedy. The horrific death of 48 young and mostly teenage citizens and the serious injury to another 225 young people was the worst fire disaster in modern Irish history and still affects many people in my constituency of Dublin Bay North. The families of these victims have never received justice or closure. We have had a litany of reports, most recently that of the former judge, Mr. Pat McCartan, in late 2017. For the past year, there has been a motion in my name on the clár of the Dáil, supported by colleagues from Independents 4 Change, People Before Profit, Solidarity and Sinn Féin, rejecting Judge McCartan's report.

Why has the Taoiseach not met the Stardust committee and its solicitor, the distinguished human rights lawyer from Newry, Mr. Darragh Mackin, despite their many requests to meet him on the campaign to reopen the inquest? The committee and its supporters have travelled the length and breadth of this country gathering signatures for the campaign. The 48,000 cards are addressed to Mr. Woulfe and call for a new inquest. They include the following statement:

The original inquest into the tragedy was held in March 1982, just over a year after the fire, when little detail was known about the events of that night. There is now much more detail which has exacerbated the rumour and suspicion surrounding the Stardust fire. It is time for truth for the Stardust victims. I call on you, as the Attorney General, to exercise your right under Section 24 of the Coroners Act 1962 to grant a fresh inquest as soon as possible.

The Taoiseach may remember that, early in this Dáil, I tabled a motion on establishing a new commission of investigation. It was defeated in January 2017 when the Minister of State, Deputy Finian McGrath, and the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, lacked the courage and bottle to insist on a new commission and instead put us through the pointless McCartan exercise, which was a much shorter rehash of the earlier Coffey report of 2009.

Constituents ask why Mr. Justice McCartan did not consider new testimony from witnesses like Mrs. Brenda Kelly who saw flames shooting from the roof at 1.43 a.m., from notable investigations including the book by Mr. Tony McCullagh and Neil Fetherstonhaugh and RTÉ’s "Prime Time Investigates" programme on the twentieth anniversary or from other fire safety professionals and ordinary citizens who witnessed the fire.

Does the Taoiseach support this campaign? Does he agree that these families deserve truthful answers about what happened on that fateful night in 1981 and that they deserve justice and closure? Will he meet them and determine how he can progress this matter?

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