Solicitor Darragh Mackin of the Belfast firm Phoenix Law, acting for Stardust fire survivors, has declared that the recently announced compensation scheme for them “is a fiasco…They have been treated with nothing but contempt.” Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan’s statement about the ex-gratia recognition payments of €20,000 to survivors injured in the inferno in 1981 -ahead of the 45th anniversary of the tragedy on Saturday - emphasised the payment is not to “compensate”, but in recognition of “the delays in providing truth and justice”.
The anger expressed by Mackin has been mirrored by some of the survivors who learned of the scheme from media reports, including Jimmy Fitzpatrick, who in the past has insisted the tardiness demonstrated when it comes to accountability is because of their status as “working class people”.
Their ongoing distress illuminates long-standing problems in how the legacies of painful events from Irish history are dealt with. An inquest in 2024 returned a verdict of “unlawful killing” in respect of all 48 who died in the Stardust fire, and the State formally apologised to the victims that year.
That apology is now part of a substantial archive of repentances, most delivered in a heartfelt and dignified way, without equivocation, such as those for the victims of what has been labelled the “architecture of containment”, including the Magdalene laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes, and the women affected by the cervical smear scandal.
READ MORE
It has also been announced that a further apology in the Dáil to survivors of abuse in industrial and reformatory schools will be offered by the Taoiseach, this commitment being made after a group of survivors spent 51 days on hunger strike outside Leinster House last year, protesting what they regard as lack of support from the Government. Other aged victims are also still awaiting apologies, including the dwindling number of surviving victims of the Thalidomide drug who are seeking “justice, recognition and historical truth”.
In the meantime, there is an ongoing review of spinal and other surgical operations performed on children in more recent times, the reviewers now engaging in a “wider look back”.
Too often, however, there have been multiple difficulties and delays in relation to redress. In 2022, after his final review of the cervical cancer screening system, public health professor Gabriel Scally declared “A duty of candour should be regarded as absolute for Irish health professionals”. This should also apply to how the State deals with people who were abjectly failed. They should not be left to further indignity and distrust after well publicised public apologies. The State needs to do much better and communicate with greater care.
