Government will give 'very serious consideration' to redress scheme for Stardust families

Tanaiste Micheal Martin speaking to the media following Fianna Fail’s annual 1916 Easter Rising commemoration at Arbour Hill cemetery Dublin.

TÁNAISTE MICHAEL MARTIN has said the Government will give “very serious consideration” to a redress scheme for the families of the 48 people who died in the Stardust nightclub fire in 1981.

An inquest into the causes of the fire and of the deaths of the victims concluded this week with the jury returning a verdict of unlawful killing. The Government is expected to issue a State apology to the families in the Dáil next week.

The families of the victims have been through “an enormous trauma”, Martin said.

“I think we have to do what’s right by the families,” he said, adding that he “certainly will be proactive in that regard and of a positive disposition towards” a redress scheme.

He also said the practice for conducting inquiries into serious incidents needs to be looked at.

The first tribunal of inquiry into the fire in 1981 was “in no way satisfactory”, he said.

That tribunal ruled that the likely cause of the fire was arson, a finding that was later rejected in 2009.

Martin said that the arson ruling had cause families “enormous anxiety”.

He criticised the nature of tribunals of inquiry and said that he believes that inquiry processes should be reviewed with the aim of prioritising victims and moving away from an “adversarial” legal approach.