Government offers Stardust survivors €20,000 payment

By Cillian Sherlock, Press Association

Survivors of the Stardust fire are eligible for payments of €20,000, under a €16.4 million recognition scheme announced by the Government.

Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan announced the scheme on Tuesday, ahead of the 45th anniversary of the tragedy on Saturday.

48 people were killed when the blaze ripped through the Dublin nightclub in 1981.

A €24 million redress scheme for the families of the victims was completed in August.

The Government had committed to a two-phased approach to redress, which would apply to “survivor beneficiaries” of the original Stardust Victims Compensation Tribunal.

A total of 823 people received compensation from the tribunal, which was established in 1985, and, therefore, the potential maximum cost of the scheme is €16.4 million.

Mr O’Callaghan said: “It is not intended to constitute ‘compensation’ for the injuries and trauma sustained by those who survived the fire, as that was the scope of the original tribunal, but instead, what is proposed is a payment which recognises the delays in providing truth and justice.”

After a more than 40-year campaign for justice, an inquest in 2024 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 a further inquest into the deaths of the victims, who were aged from 16 to 27 and mostly came from the surrounding north Dublin area.

A majority decision from the jury found the blaze, which broke out in the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1981, was caused by an electrical fault in the hot press of the bar.

Days after the decision, then-taoiseach Simon Harris apologised to the victims, survivors and families, saying the State had failed them.

The application process for the next phase of payments will be open for six months, and the Department of Justice said “eligible applicants will be paid as soon as possible”.