Creeslough families push for public inquiry at meeting with government

SOME of the families of those who died in the Creeslough explosion yesterday met with Justice Minister Helen McEntee to press for a public inquiry.

Gardaí continue to investigate the circumstances of the explosion that ripped through the village’s service station and a nearby apartment block on the afternoon of Friday, October 7, 2022.

Ten people including four men, three woman and three children died in the tragedy.

While the cause of the explosion has yet to be formally confirmed by the authorities more than two years later, it is understood a gas leak is considered a central line of inquiry.

The meeting at Government Buildings in Dublin was attended by Ms McEntee, and fellow Government ministers Charlie McConalogue and Eamon Ryan.

The Ministers listened to the personal stories of the families who have lost loved ones, and others affected by the Creeslough tragedy.

The Ministers communicated to those present the strong desire of government that families get the answers they need in relation to the loss of their loved ones in what was a national tragedy.

But while the Ministers did not rule out a public inquiry, a statement released by the Government Press Office following the meeting yesterday stated: “It is important that the Garda investigation, the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) investigation and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) investigation complete their work.”

NO ANSWERS

Afterwards, solicitor Damien Tansey SC, who is involved in the campaign for an inquiry, said: “It warrants, at the very minimum, an inquiry of a kind that will produce appropriate answers, because at the moment, more than two years after the tragedy, there is a vacuum in terms of information, and the bereaved and the countless number of people who were injured have no answers.

“They don’t know what’s going on. And given the scale of this tragedy, it warrants a statutory inquiry that will be run under the chairmanship of a sitting judge or a retired high court judge, who will have the power to summons witnesses, take evidence under oath, make findings of fact, make adverse findings, and resolve conflict where there are opposing accounts of the same events.”

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