Announcement of €20,000 payment to victims of Stardust fire criticised as a 'backward step' 

Survivors and family members in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin in April 2024 after a verdict of unlawful killing was returned by the jury in the Stardust fire inquests. File picture: Brian Lawless/PA 

The announcement of a €20,000 payment for survivors of the Stardust fire has been described as a “backward step” which abandons “hard-won promises” made to them by Government.

The Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has announced details of the ex gratia payments to survivors of the 1981 fire, who’d previously accessed a compensational tribunal in the 1980s, to recognise the “delays in providing truth and justice” to those affected by the tragedy.