Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire.

I thank colleagues for their support today. It has been an honour to know the families of the Stardust fire. It is regrettable that since I first met up with the group and embarked on helping them to seek justice, some are no longer with us today. There is an urgency about us getting this inquest under way.

I welcome the provisions within Part 8 of the Bill. Senator Seery Kearney hit the nail on the head. It is not only the families who were impacted by the fire that night in 1981. It sent shock waves across the nation. It had a legacy. Although I was young, when I was going out I was told to check the exits, leave my coat behind and never ignore a fire alarm. It was drilled in to every teenager for years afterwards because no parent wants to send his or her child out to enjoy a night and not to see him or her come home. I give credit to the Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, for listening to the families' concerns around the need for a jury in the first place but also that the jury would be independently selected. Those were two critical elements that the families wanted to have addressed and Deputy McEntee has listened to those concerns. Another was that the jurors would have their income protected. We want juries to be representative of society and given that this will be a lengthy inquest - it will be the largest in the history of the State - it is important that no juror could feel that he or she would not be able to serve because of financial difficulties.

I would like to have clarity on two issues relating to the selection process. The first is around the facility to inspect the jury panel that is selected by the registrar. It is about the transparency of the process. The history of how the families have been dealt with by the State has not been a good one. I am wondering why that has not been included in the provisions when we took the provisions from the Juries Act.

The second is around the challenging of jurors, either with or without cause. In the Dáil Second Stage debate, my colleague, Deputy Martin Kenny, asked the Minister, Deputy McEntee, about that issue. The Minister's reassurance at the time was that section 59(2) and the role of the coroner to allow for that objection was provided for and that the coroner can take a request from either family members or the legal representatives of those family members where a reason is given, but I would like clarity. Is that after the panel has been selected because what the families are saying to me is they want to know is that protection to challenge a juror provided for within Part 8?

Others have already said the first inquest was an "abject failure". They are not my words, but those of the eminent Professor Phil Scraton. I note the acknowledgement of the Attorney General who granted a second inquest. Senator Martin is correct in stating that it was a big step by the Attorney General to do this. It also needs to be acknowledged that 48,000 members of the public signed postcards requesting that. That shows, once again, the public interest in getting this inquest right. I would like clarity on that. We are almost there. If we could get this over the line before the summer recess and have all of those concerns or questions addressed, that would be helpful.

Finally, this is bespoke to the Stardust inquest, given the size and the scale of the inquest and the significance of it, but we all are conscious that the inquest system in Ireland is not currently fit for purpose. That review is ongoing. That is why those concerns, if they could be addressed, are so important. The Stardust inquest should set the bar. It should be the gold standard. This is what happened with the Hillsborough inquest - it was interesting that the Attorney General referred to the Hillsborough inquest in granting the new inquest on the Stardust - but also the Ballymurphy inquest. Those were two inquests that had lengthy battles by the families but the issue was that they set the bar for how families should be treated in inquests. I would like to think that we would do the same now with the Stardust, that we get this 100% right and that, when that review of the inquest system is finalised, it would be the bar that we would strive to achieve for all families going through the inquest procedure.