LAST UPDATE | 20 Apr
TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has said he “apologised unreservedly” to each family of Stardust victims at a meeting today, and will “do so on behalf of the State” in the Dáil on Tuesday.
Harris and the families met today following the jury for the inquests into the 1981 nightclub fire delivering a verdict of unlawful killing in the case of all 48 victims.
Harris said it was a “humbling and emotional” meeting with several dozen family members.
“I want to thank every person who attended for what they told me, both as a group and in private individual conversations,” he said in a statement this afternoon.
“More than 70 people came to the Department of the Taoiseach today. However, I am acutely aware that the numbers affected by Stardust is many, many multiples of that.
“That includes those injured, the people working in Stardust, the frontline workers who fought to save lives on the night. It includes survivors, the fire crews, the ambulance staff, the gardaí, the army, the taxi drivers and the communities across Ireland who have carried this tragedy with them for 43 years.”
He concluded: “I have listened closely to everything the families told me and as Taoiseach, I have today apologised unreservedly to each family. I will do so on behalf of the State on Tuesday next.”
A majority decision from the jury of seven women and five men found the blaze started due to an electrical fault in the hot press of the bar.
Many of the exits in the building where hundreds of young people had gathered were chained closed and windows were blocked by iron bars.
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, who met the victims’ families before the meeting with the Taoiseach, said the State “actively and consciously denied truth and continues to deny justice”.
She called for a “full, unequivocal, transparent apology”.
“The families have told me very clearly they do not want tea and sympathy. They do not want generalised sentiment,” she said.
“What they want are specific acknowledgements of the horror, the trauma, that they have been through.”
Harris will seek to address the Dáil on Tuesday regarding Stardust, where it is expected he will make the formal state apology.
On The Late Late Show last night, presenter Patrick Kielty listed the names of the victims and interviewed family members, who have been seeking answers and justice for more than four decades.
With reporting by Eoghan Dalton
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