‘Government must step up fire safety’

THE Government must step up the enforcement of fire safety in pubs and nightclubs to safeguard the public, the head of the Stardust inquiry warned yesterday.

Former Chief Justice Ronan Keane said that without an adequate machinery of enforcement, the lives of people would continue to be ‘dangerously at risk’.

“It is to be hoped that central government will play its part by making adequate resources available to fire authorities so as to ensure that the powers of enforcement vested in them can be meaningfully exercised. Otherwise, the terrible lessons of the past will not have been learned,” he said.