Grubby cover-up has finally fallen apart
STATE PEDDLED STARDUST LIES
THE evidence emerging from the inquest into the death of teenager Aoife Johnston at Limerick University Hospital lays bare the shambolic state of our hospitals.
A nurse working on the night that Aoife died from sepsis — as her parents begged for help — has described the hospital as being like a “war zone”.
All parents have at some stage being left waiting in a hospital emergency department with a sick
WAKE-UP CALL: Aoife Johnston child, and left worried to death themselves that their child may get sicker while waiting.
Sadly for 16-year-old Aoife’s parents, James and Carol, the most unimaginable outcome occurred as she passed away during her excruciating wait for treatment. If this isn’t a wake-up call — amongst the many thousands of others — for those responsible for our health service to fix it, then I’m not sure it ever will be.
ANOTHER Taoiseach and yet another State apology.
Would it not serve our State better if we had a government that was actually on the side of the people, and not instantly running for cover whenever a scandal or tragedy occurs?
Because make no mistake — the instant reaction to the horrendous loss of 48 lives in the Stardust nightclub fire in Artane in
1981 was a cover-up.
Itsuitedthegovernment of then Taoiseach Charles Haughey no end that the initial tribunal into the fire in November 1981 found no fault for the fire was with the venue.
Even better again was that it found the fire was most likely caused by arson, depicting the victims of this tragedy as uneducated oiks who had done this unto themselves.
And if wasn’t for the incredible families of the victims fighting tooth and nail for up to 43 years, that’s how the State would have been happy to leave it.
The treatment of those families over those 43 years has been sickening in the extreme.
A compensation scheme in 1985 that offered paltry sums to the families and stuffed with threats that they could lose their homes if they opened their mouths was set up with the intention of sweeping it all under the carpet.
It can be no coincidence that at the time of the fire on St Valentine’s Day in 1981, the owner of the Stardust, Patrick Butterly, was a keen fundraiser for Fianna Fail and a friend of Charlie Haughey. Which is why Haughey took such a keen interest in the Stardust case, but not on the side of the victims.
Fire
The 1981 State papers show that just two days after the fire, a senior advisor to Haughey wrote a stinging letter to RTE accusing the national broadcaster of undermining the Stardust Tribunal by airing an in-depth report into the tragedy.
What exactly was Haughey worried that RTE’s report would uncover?
That the 48 victims of the Stardust nightclub fire in 1981 has been unlawfully killed?
Well they were, and despite the cover-up, the truth has finally emerged.