STARDUST survivor Antoinette Keegan wants to see the disaster added to school curriculums so students can learn how the State failed families in the aftermath of the blaze.
And Education Minister Norma Foley has backed her call, saying she would like to work with a committee set up by the 48 victims’ families to examine the 1981 nightclub fire.
3
3
3
The Irish Sun today launches a podcast examining the blaze and its aftermath in Dublin.
Asked if the fire and the State’s botched response should be taught in schools too, Minister Foley said she she is examining the proposals and would like to work with the committee set up by victims’ families on the issue.
She told us: “I have absolutely no difficulty at all in terms of what is being proposed here in terms of finding a way for it to be reflected on our curriculum.”
Speaking about the Taoiseach’s apology, the Fianna Fail TD continued: “I think it was interesting to note in the Chamber and perhaps even amongst the families – there were very few there who were adults at that time.
“For most of us, we were either children or very young people at the time and some in the Taoiseach’s instance it happened before they were even born.
“So I do think that it would be right that there is a means of making it part of the curriculum.
“We would always know with events with such magnitude that we always want our children to know but also to understand our past and where we’re coming from.
“So we certainly will be very happy and we will engage directly as well with the group in relation to that.”
During the State apology in the Dail, two long serving Dublin Bay North TDs in Richard Bruton and Sean Haughey apologised for not doing enough to help the Stardust families in their fight for justice.
Sean Haughey is the son of Charlie Haughey who was Taoiseach at the time of the fire in 1981 and launched the initial inquiry that ruled the blaze was started by arson – despite there being no evidence to back this up.
This is an injustice that the families spent decades fighting against as their loved ones were labelled as possible arsonists.
In the Dail, Deputy Haughey said: “For my own part I genuinely believe I consistently followed up any issues the Committee asked me to do.
“I raised various matters in the Dail. I wrote to various ministers as requested but if I’m honest though, this was not enough.
‘I do regret that’
“I also admit that my relations with the Committee were at times fraught and I do regret that.”
Fine Gael TD Richard Bruton said: “The burning sense of injustice has fired these families throughout a very long struggle and we who have represented them in the constituency have failed them and I acknowledge that fully.
“Often it seems that the chains and padlocks were again being put in place as they sought justice from a system that always seemed to have the doors closed.”
DECADES OF HELL – STARDUST TRAGEDY TIMELINE
THE families of the Stardust dead were forced to begin campaigning just days after the fire. They knew then, and would be reminded for the next 43 years, they would have to fight with everything they had.
FEBRUARY 14, 1981: A blaze rips through the Stardust nightclub, in Artane, north Dublin, killing 48 young people and injuring more than 200 others. It remains the worst fire disaster in the history of the State.
NOVEMBER 1981: A tribunal of inquiry into the tragedy, chaired by Mr Justice Ronan Keane, finds the blaze was “probably” caused by arson. The families reject the finding and start a decades-long campaign for a new inquiry.
MARCH 1982: Original inquests found that all 48 died from a combination of smoke inhalation and cyanide poisoning.
SEPTEMBER 1985: The government establishes a Compensation Tribunal to give ex-gratia payments to victims’ families and survivors. 823 people received just under £10.5million. The lives of the dead were valued at £7,500 each.
MARCH 2006: Campaigners march on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s office demanding new evidence be considered in a public inquiry.
APRIL 2007: The bodies of five victims — Richard Bennett, Michael French, Murtagh Kavanagh, Éamon Loughman and Paul Wade — are finally identified using DNA techniques.
JULY 2008: The Government appoints Paul Coffey SC to conduct an independent examination of the case for a reopened inquiry.
JANUARY 2009: The report rules out a new inquiry — but dismisses the probable arson verdict. Families declare a “victory for the dead”.
2013: Gardai open a criminal investigation into alleged perjury over evidence given by several witnesses at the 1981 tribunal.
FEBRUARY 2014: Two representatives of the Stardust families end a 24-hour occupation of Government Buildings after demanding to see then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny.
JANUARY 2016: The Director of Public Prosecutions says it will not mount a prosecution into alleged perjury by several witnesses at the 1981 tribunal.
FEBRUARY 2016: Families hold a protest at Dublin Coroner’s Court calling for the inquest into the 48 deaths to be reopened, saying they were given a cause of death but no verdict.
MARCH 2017: The Cabinet appoints retired judge Mr Justice Patrick McCartan to conduct a probe into the circumstances surrounding the tragedy and to rule whether a commission of investigation into the fire is warranted.
NOVEMBER 2017: Families reject the McCartan report’s recommendation that there should be no new inquiry, describing the tone of the report as “rude, aggressive and irrational” and they continue to demand a new inquest.
NOVEMBER 2018: Families say they have found new evidence and will petition the Attorney General for a new inquest. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar tells the Dail the AG will give full consideration to their request.
FEBRUARY 14, 2019: On the 38th anniversary of the tragedy, a new plaque is unveiled at the site of the former Stardust nightclub, with the inscription “They Never Came Home”, and listing the names of the 48 dead.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2019: Attorney General Seamus Woulfe contacts families of the victims to say an inquest will be held because of an “insufficiency of inquiry” in original inquests.
APRIL 25, 2023: After delays caused by Covid and a judicial review taken by the club owner Eamon Butterly in the High Court, the new inquest finally begins in the Pillar Room at the Rotunda Hospital, in Dublin.
APRIL 18, 2024: Verdicts are announced after the longest inquest in the history of the State.
Some of the Stardust families have been left furious at the two TDs’ speeches during the State apology as they said the politicians abandoned them after former judge Pat McCartan’s 2017 report which advised there should be no new inquiry into the fire.
Asked if she accepts Deputies Haughey and Bruton’s apologies, Antoinette Keegan told RTE: “No I don’t. That is my opinion and a lot of the families also yesterday were very annoyed and angry.
“The very fact that I rang Sean Haughey so many times over the years even after Pat McCartan’s report, I was told repeatedly from his secretary that he’d ring me back and he never rang me back.
“I left messages to say we were not happy with the Pat McCartan report and we want to advance it further and we want a new inquiry.
‘It’s over’
“I was told ‘that’s it, that’s it, it’s over.
“And as for Richard Bruton, he was going around canvassing and I asked him what do we do now after Pat McCartan and he said ‘there is nothing more you can do – we’ve done all we can do, you’ve got three inquiries, that’s it, it’s over’.
“So I don’t accept their apologies. They locked the doors from us getting in. We were locked out from getting in.
“In the Stardust we were locked in with the chains on the doors, but they locked the doors from helping us and I was very annoyed with them doing that apology.”
Meanwhile, the Government is planning to provide counselling for the Stardust families, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.
A day after delivering a State apology to the families, Mr Harris thanked them for engaging with him and said he does not take it “for granted” after they had been “betrayed by the State so often over 43 years”.
Mr Harris said there are four actions he plans to take in relation to Stardust, including sending a letter of apology to each family.
He said: “My department has had further engagement with their legal representatives about what’s next.”
Jury’s verdict
The Taoiseach said he would not comment on any prospective criminal proceedings brought over the 1981 nightclub fire.
Last week, an inquest jury returned a verdict that all the victims were unlawfully killed.
Gardai said they are aware of the jury’s verdict and are awaiting the coroner’s report.
Apology letters
Mr Harris said he plans to issue a personal letter of apology to each of the families.
He said the issue of counselling was raised during meetings with the families and a range of support will be put in place “very shortly”.
A national commemoration will also be looked at, he said, and insisted the families should lead on what is suitable.
The fourth State action is the consideration by the Attorney General and other relevant ministers of the inquest’s recommendations.
