Stardust families pin hopes for new probe on Fitzgerald

Families who lost loved ones in the Stardust fire are pinning their hopes on the newly appointed justice minister for a fresh inquiry into the disaster.

The Stardust Victims Committee wrote to Frances Fitzgerald at the weekend, asking her to take a different approach to her predecessor Alan Shatter, who dismissed calls to reopen the case.

They have asked her to meet them so they can present to her in person new evidence they say warrants a fresh inquiry.

It includes a 999 call reporting a fire in the roof of the Stardust nightclub that was excluded from the original tribunal of inquiry into the fire which killed 48 young people at a Valentine’s night disco in Dublin in 1981.

Other evidence is from a contractor who worked on the building and said incorrect information was given to the tribunal relating to a partition wall in the vicinity of where the fire started.

Gardaí are investigating allegations of perjury against several witnesses who provided evidence to the tribunal. The tribunal concluded the fire started in seating and was started deliberately.

Relatives have always disputed the findings and after 28 years, the Coffey Review set up by the Department of Justice found it was not possible to establish the cause of the fire but that the tribunal erred in saying it was arson.

However, the report’s conclusions on whether a fresh inquiry was merited changed between the version presented to the department in late 2008, which was open to a new probe, and that made public in early 2009, which said it was not necessary.

Stardust survivor Antoinette Keegan, who lost two sisters in the fire, said Mr Shatter never properly explained why the change was made or why he was opposed to a new inquiry.

“He repeatedly said in answers to us and to parliamentary questions that because Paul Coffey said the cause of the fire was unknown, there was no reason for an inquiry, but the cause of the fire was outside Paul Coffey’s terms of reference,” she said, adding that the families hoped Ms Fitzgerald would take a different stance because of comments she made about the Coffey Report in the Seanad in 2009, saying it was “a shame on politics”.