Stardust legal fees pass €1m
Cost of new inquests into tragedy
LEGAL fees for new inquests into the 1981 Stardust fire have topped €1million - with a start date for the long-awaited hearings yet to be agreed.
The Legal Aid Board has so far approved €893,407 in barristers’ fees and €142,068 in solicitors’ fees for victims’ families since 2019.
Justice Minister Helen Mcentee said legal aid had been granted to all families who applied to the coroner under new regulations introduced last year.
Inquests in 1982 recorded the cause of the 48 deaths in the nightclub inferno as arson but victims’ families have campaigned for a new hearing.
In 2019, the Attorney General directed fresh inquests due to an “insufficiency of inquiry as to how the deaths occurred”.
Earlier this week Dublin city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said the inquests could finally get under way in September of this year.
ISSUES
Outstanding issues include a judicial review taken by the owner of the venue in Artane, Dublin, and agreeing a mechanism to select jurors.
Darragh Mackin, solicitor for the families, welcomed news of a possible start date and said “time was of the essence” for relatives.
Senator Lynn Boylan raised the issue in the Seanad on Tuesday and accused the Government of “repeated cold-heartedness” in its dealings with the Stardust families.
She said relatives of the dead and the 128 injured had been horrified to learn pre-inquest hearings would take place at the coroner’s court.
She added many relatives had stayed away because it was the venue of “the original much maligned Stardust inquest and holds horrific memories for the families”.
A new venue at the Rotunda Pillar Room has been secured for the inquest after the lease at the RDS ran out. In reply to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fail TD Cormac Devlin, Ms Mcentee said the legal fees and expenses were discharged by her department. She said the Legal Aid Board had a role in certifying each claim for payment had been “properly
incurred on foot of a legal aid certificate or other authority”.
Ms Mcentee added: “I am informed by the Legal Aid Board that it has, to date, certified to my department claims in connection with the new Stardust Inquests totalling €142,168 in solicitors fees, €893,407 in barrister fees and £200 for expert reports.
“These arise primarily in connection with the preliminary hearings that have been conducted by the coroner to date.
“A date for commencement of the inquest proper has not yet been set by the coroner.”