Tánaiste expresses support for Stardust redress scheme
By Cillian Sherlock, PA
Micheál Martin has expressed support for a redress scheme for the families of those affected by the Stardust fire.
48 people were killed when the blaze ripped through the Dublin nightclub in 1981.
After a more than 40-year campaign for justice, last week an inquest found that the 48 victims had been unlawfully killed.
A previous finding in 1982 said that the fire had been started deliberately, a theory the families never accepted.
That ruling was dismissed in 2009, leading to the latest inquests for the victims, who were aged from 16 to 27 and mostly came from the surrounding north Dublin area.
A majority decision from the jury of seven women and five men found the blaze, which broke out in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1981, was instead caused by an electrical fault in the hot press of the bar.
Taoiseach Simon Harris is to offer those affected a State apology in the Dáil on Tuesday.
Following the verdict, commentators have also questioned whether there will be a redress scheme.
Speaking at a Fianna Fáil event in Dublin on Sunday, Tánaiste Mr Martin said the families of the victims have been through “an enormous trauma”.
He said nothing could ever console their loss.
Mr Martin said: “We will certainly – in addition to an apology – look at the entirety of all of that and see how the State can respond in consultation with the families and all the loved ones of the victims.
“Because there will be further consultations in the time ahead with them. But certainly, you know, we’re gonna give it a very serious consideration.”
Asked if he would support a redress scheme, he added: “I think we have to do what’s right by the families in particular, and I certainly will be proactive in that regard and have a positive disposition towards that.”
Mr Martin was also critical of the initial tribunal of inquiry into the fire.
He said there was a need to examine a better way for victims of tragedies and other “terrible situations”.
