Artane (Dublin) Fire: Tribunal of Inquiry.

Minister for the Environment (Mr. R. Burke)

I move:

That it is expedient that a tribunal be established for—

1. inquiring into the following definite matters of urgent public importance:

(1) the immediate and other causes of, and the circumstances leading to, the fire at the Stardust Club, Artane, Dublin, on the 14th February, 1981.

(2) the circumstances of and leading to the loss of life and personal injury at the Stardust Club on the 14th February, 1981.

(3) the measures, and their adequacy, taken on and before the 14th February, 1981, to prevent and detect, and to minimise and otherwise to deal with fire at the Stardust Club.

(4) the means and systems of emergency escape from the Stardust Club, and their adequacy, on the 14th February, 1981.

(5) the measures, and their adequacy, taken on and before the 14th February, 1981, at the Stardust Club to prevent and to minimise and otherwise to deal with any other circumstances that led or contributed to the loss of life and personal injury aforesaid or might have led or contributed to loss of life or personal injury;

and

2. making such recommendations as the Tribunal, having regard to its findings, thinks proper in respect of the statutory and other provisions in relation to fire, fire prevention and means and systems of emergency escape from fire, their adequacy and enforcement and any other matters that the Tribunal considers relevant.

Since submitting the motion I have decided to revise it in paragraph 2 so as to delete the original word "general" and substitute the words "statutory and other". We are all, Government and people alike, extremely shocked and distressed by the appalling tragedy which occurred in the Stardust Club in Artane in the early morning of Saturday last, when so many young people lost their lives and more than 150 others suffered injuries.

On behalf of the Government and myself, I wish to again extend our deepest sympathy to the bereaved, to their relatives and friends and to all those who have suffered injury. I should like to take this opportunity also of paying tribute to the heroism and devotion to duty of the members of the fire service, the ambulance services, the Garda, hospital staff, members of Civil Defence and others involved for their marvellous work on the night of the tragedy.

We have a duty to the victims of this disastrous fire and to their relatives, and, indeed, to all our people, to do everything in our power to establish the circumstances and causes of the fire. We must seek out as fully as possible the lessons to be learned from this terrible event, so as to prevent, as far as is humanly possible, such a disaster occurring again. It is for these reasons that the Government decided that the body appointed to hold the inquiry should have the highest status in law and they concluded that a Tribunal of Inquiry under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Acts, 1921 and 1979, would be the most appropriate for the purpose.

The President of the High Court has consented that the Honourable Mr. Justice Ronan Keane will constitute the Tribunal. He will be assisted by a number of assessors who have been chosen on the basis of high calibre, experience and expertise. Their names are as follows:

Professor David Rasbash, B.Sc.,

Ph. D.,

Department of Fire Safety Engineering,

Edinburgh University.

Mr. Gunnar Haurum,

Chief Inspector of the Fire Service,

Denmark.

Mr. Pierce Pigott, B.E., M.Sc., C.

Eng., F.I.E.I.,

Head of Construction Division,

An Foras Forbartha,

St. Martin's House,

Waterloo Road,

Dublin, 4.

I should like to express my gratitude to Mr. Justice Keane and the assessors for agreeing to the Government's invitation to act.

The tribunal is being given very wide terms of reference to enable it to carry out its task. It will be empowered to inquire into the cause of the disaster and the circumstances in which it occured and to examine the adequacy of the measures taken to prevent, detect or minimise or otherwise deal with the occurrence and also the means of emergency escape.

In line with the Government's declared determination to have the most searching and exhaustive inquiry carried out, the tribunal is established for making such recommendations as it, having regard to its findings, thinks proper in respect of the general provisions in relation to fire, fire prevention and means and systems of emergency escape from fire, their adequacy and enforcement and any other matter that the tribunal considers relevant.

The tribunal will be empowered to require the attendance of witnesses, the giving of evidence and the production of documents and the terms of reference will provide the tribunal with full scope in its conduct of the inquiry.

The State will provide an independent solicitor and counsel who will be available to act for the next-of-kin of any victim and for any injured party before the tribunal. Any such party who wishes to be represented by this legal service should apply to the solictor. Every party is of course at liberty to make his own arrangements independently of this State aid. The tribunal will sit in the premises of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, Blackhall Place, Dublin, and will have its first meeting on Monday, 2 March 1981.

In deference to the feelings of the bereaved and the relatives of the victims of the tragedy, I had intended to confine my remarks to the minimum necessary to introduce this motion. However, I feel obliged to comment on certain unfounded statements of a serious nature which have been made and which may have given rise to some public disquiet.

The effectiveness of the fire service has been called into question and I should like to put on record that on the night in question the Dublin Fire Brigade behaved in an exemplary manner. From a report that I received at 10.30 a.m. on the morning of the fire the following facts emerged. From the initial call to the fire brigade at 1.43 a.m. four fire engines, including a turn-table ladder together with an emergency tender and two ambulances, immediately responded. On arrival the brigade immediately went into action. After an assessment of the situation a call was made, eight minutes after the original summons at 1.51 a.m., to headquarters and the Major Accident Plan was put into operation.

Statements have been made that my Department have deliberately delayed action to strengthen and improve the fire service. I am satisfied that a résumé, necessarily brief in these circumstances, will show that this is not so.

The work of improvement commenced with a comprehensive review of the service, and the legislative framework within which it operates, by a working party whose report was published in 1975. Following full consideration of the report and comment received thereon, mainly from local authorities, action has been initiated by my Department on all the principal recommendations made by the working party. Furthermore, to enable progress to be achieved as quickly as possible, the administrative and technical staff of the Fire Services Section has been expanded considerably.

The following are some of the more important measures which have been taken:

Detailed local reviews of the fire service have been initiated in all areas, with a view to identifying deficiencies so that remedial action could be taken.

The capital allocation for the fire service has been increased considerably — from £694,000 in 1977 to £2,500,000 this year.

The programme of central training courses for fire service personnel has been expanded.

A Fire Prevention Council have been set up to promote fire prevention measures generally.

A study has been completed on the need for improvement of fire service telecommunications and action has been initiated with a view to having the recommended improvements implemented.

Important guidelines have issued to local authorities on recruit training.

I should mention that personnel from the local fire service are giving valuable assistance to the Department in relation to many of these matters, which leads me to the comments which have been made on civil servants: I need hardly say that they are entirely without foundation.

Having made these points about what has been done, there is always room for improvement as in all areas of public administration. I will be bringing forward, as a matter of urgency, proposals for improving the law on the fire service, in particular in relation to fire prevention matters. Draft proposals for a Bill are at an advance stage. The heads of the Bill have been cleared with other Departments and I will be bringing the scheme of the Bill before my colleagues in the Cabinet within ten days.

As you will be aware, I have requested all city and county managers to arrange for immediate inspection of all potentially dangerous buildings, such as dance halls, discotheques, night clubs and other places of public entertainment in which large numbers of people may be placed at risk in the event of fire. I have also asked that any premises which do not meet fire safety requirements should be closed, under existing powers, pending the taking of remedial measures.

Draft Building Regulations were prepared in the Department and published on 29 November 1976. Copies were widely circulated by the Department to local authorities and to professional, administrative and trade bodies and comments were invited from interested parties within six months. A Government statement accompanying their publication said that, pending formal making of the regulations the draft would afford a valuable guide to those engaged in the design and construction of buildings and those in the local authority service concerned in that purpose.

As recently as last November, in a speech to the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, I asked the industry to continue to see the draft as a code of practice until such time as the final document had been prepared.

Requests were received that the time for comments — over 600 were received — be extended for a further period and these were granted up to 31 December 1977. Even with these extensions comments continue to be received, in particular on the method of implementation and control. The original technical draft, prepared by An Foras Forbartha, was not prepared in a legal form and a completely new draft had to be prepared to ensure that the regulations when made would be legally viable.

I now propose to issue within the next 10 days the draft of the regulations with amendments, and within six weeks to publish a revised version incorporating the amendments. I intend that they be used by local authorities, industrial and professional bodies in their operation, as if they had statutory backing. New legislation will be required to give statutory backing to the regulations and to provide a more flexible system of control. I have already initiated action on this enabling legislation and I will bring it before the House as quickly as possible.

I have met representatives of the Fire Prevention Council on a number of occasions during the past few days and in the light of the discussions I have now decided that a special task force will be immediately established under the direction of the present chairman of the council, Mr. Geoffrey Cronin. I intend that the task force will liaise closly with local authorities in the latter's role on fire prevention and keep me fully briefed. The head of the task force will report directly to me. It will also augment the efforts of the Fire Prevention Council on such matters as publicity, advertising, seminars, preparation of instruction leaflets, all aimed at increasing public awareness of fire hazards with particular reference to places of public entertainment. Further details of the work and composition of the task force will be announced later. I would like to take this opportunity to convey my thanks to Mr. Cronin for making his services available. A number of amendments put down seem to envisage a major and comprehensive review of the entire legislative and statutory provisions covering fire and public safety.

The Government are satisfied that such a major review should not be undertaken by a tribunal of this sort. The Government are influenced in this matter by the need in the interests of all those affected by the tragedy that the tribunal's findings should be available at the earliest possible date and that its progress should not be impeded by detailed investigation of the matters referred to in the amendments. The Government consider that these matters should be looked into in depth by a full-scale broadly-based commission of inquiry.

The Government have in mind, as a separate matter, the establishment of such a commission of inquiry.

To conclude I have no doubt that the House shares fully the Government's objectives in this matter and will lend its full support to this motion.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Five amendments have been tabled to the motion. One amendment may be moved by Deputy Tully for the Labour Party. The other four amendments will be discussed together with that amendment and with the motion and may be formally moved at the end of the debate and a decision reached on each of them in turn.

Dr. FitzGerald

On a point of order, does that mean that the document circulated as "Revision to Paragraph 2" does not count as an amendment?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I understand that it has been accepted as part of the motion itself. It is therefore not an amendment.

Mr. Tully

I move amendment No. 1:

In paragraph 1., to delete sub-paragraph (3) and substitute the following:

"the measures and their adequacy, including the Draft Building Regulations of the Department of the Environment and the statutory provisions and regulations which are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment and the Local Authority, taken on or before the 14th February 1981, to prevent and detect, and to minimise and otherwise deal with fire at the Stardust Club."

Right through the length and breadth of the country shock and horror waves are still spreading as a result of the terrible tragedy last Saturday morning. It was a tragedy such as some people say never occurred in this country before. That is not quite correct because as far back as the thirties we had the Drumcollogher tragedy which had a certain amount of similarity to the present tragedy: it was in a place of entertainment; it was caused by certain things which in my opinion were not at the time properly investigated with the result that most people still do not know what actually caused that disaster or why so many people were killed. We had the tragedy in the convent in Cavan, the tragedy in Whitegate. We had the more recent tragedy in Burdoran and we now have this one. There were others of not such major proportions but horrible tragedies they were not only for those directly concerned but for their friends and relatives. The one thing we must do, having given all the sympathy and solace we can to the relatives and the injured, is try to ensure that something like this never happens again.

I do not want to be critical and this is not the place to try to score party political points. There are many things I should like to say but from which I shall refrain. I would, however, like the Minister to comment on why the draft building regulations were not dealt with before now. Why was something not done about them? They were not drawn up in a hurry. They took quite a long time to prepare and when prepared were sent throughout the country for the purpose of getting comments and those comments came in — over 600, the Minister says — and these regulations having been discussed and reviewed, we find that from 1976 to date we have not been in a position to put them into operation. It is now suggested that the Government should commence preparing for such operation.

I am not criticising the Minister or his predecessor but I believe that what occurred in Drumcollogher and in all the other fire tragedies down the years can occur again unless we are very careful. Last Saturday's tragedy was terrible; it is still terrible and will be terrible for the next few months but we tend to forget tragedies very quickly and if something is not done now as a matter of urgency I believe it will drop into the background and over a period of time we will find reasons for not doing what we should have done before now and what we should now do as a matter of urgency.

Our amendment was put down for a number of reasons, one being that we felt that the motion before the House was not adequate to cover the serious situation that had arisen. We therefore suggest that the House should delete (3). As a matter of interest I should be glad to know why some other system of numbering sections of the motion and the subjects of the motion was not devised because it is rather confusing to have 1. and (1) again and 2. and (2) again when the matter could be dealt with by using letters or Roman numerals. We want to delete (3) which says "the measures, and their adequacy, taken on and before the 14th February 1981, to prevent and detect, and to minimise the otherwise to deal with fire at the Stardust Club." We do not think that is adequate and we suggest it should be substituted by the wording "the measures and their adequacy, including the Draft Building Regulations of the Department of the Environment and the statutory provisions and regulations which are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment and the Local Authority taken on or before the 14th February, 1981, to prevent and detect, and to minimise and otherwise to deal with fire at the Stardust Club."

One word which must be included in any regulations made by the Minister is the word "statutory." I remember well regulations made many years ago and passed around to local authorities which did not have, as far as I am aware, the statutory authority to be operated, but which did have the effect that the fire officers in the particular local authority areas who were really interested in seeing that things were done properly insisted, for instance, on having secondary lighting in every place of entertainment, lighting which would continue to show where the exits were when the main current went off. These officers insisted on having panic bolts put on doors and on the requisite number of doors being available. In my own county, in my own constituency, small halls were closed down because the necessary money could not be found to carry out these alterations. There were those who said at the time that it was terrible to close down these small halls which were very necessary in the area. I felt that those people were right, but after last Saturday morning's tragedy, I am perfectly satisfied that those fire officers were correct. That is the type of person we must have — somebody who will lay down regulations which, although it may appear the popular thing not to have them carried out, must be carried out and to the letter. If those regulations had been in operation all over this country, we could not have had the terrible tragedy which occurred.

I am under the impression that the tragedy could have been very much worse. The crowd there, and the consequent loss of life could have been very much greater. I may be in a minority, but I am not prepared to accept at all that the fire was due to vandalism. I do not believe that we have in this country — bad as some of us may be — people who would deliberately set fire to a place where a number of people were enjoying themselves and so run the risk of causing such a tragedy. I hope that I am right in this. There are far too many prepared to rush into print and claim that this, that and the other was done. I believe it was a terrible accident, but an accident.

The main point is that, when the tribunal is set up and when they bring in their findings, they do that without fear or favour. I do not know any of the people mentioned by the Minister as being members of the tribunal but hope that, no matter who they are, there will be no glossing over or covering up and that people will not be allowed to get the impression that the fire could not have been avoided if it could have been avoided. If somebody was wrong and if certain precautions which should have been taken were not, the public should know. We do not want a repetition of inquiries into fires causing loss of life which never saw the light of day. That is not the way to deal with this matter.

People must know.

There is another serious matter about which the authorities have been very lenient. We know that there must be an annual registration of clubs and places of entertainment. We know that the registration is carried out as a result of a daylight visit by some officer, high or low, who takes a look around the place and then walks out. If there is something amiss which is not very obvious, then a licence is usually granted. Whatever regulations are being made should include stipulation that there be very regular inspections carried out, while, in fact, the place of entertainment is in operation. That is the time when one can see whether or not there is a danger in the way it is being operated.

Another point is that the licences are usually granted for a set figure. In the Stardust Club, I understand that the number was around 1,600 or 1,700 and that half that number were present on that night. Does anybody here deny that there are clubs, hotels and places of entertainment in this country licensed for 1,000 which, on occasions, have packed 4,000 to 5,000 youngsters in to see some star who is there for the night at enormous expense? If we are really interested in having this thing done properly, this overcrowding must be prohibited by the draft regulations being prepared by the Minister.

The Fine Gael Party have tabled three amendments and the Labour Party have put in an amendment which the Government have covered by their latest amendment, in respect of having statutory powers. Human nature being what it is, unless statutory powers are put in, we will not have these regulations carried out. Even if statutory powers are included, unless there is the necessary mechanism there to ensure that these regulations are carried out properly, ways will be devised of avoiding them. Most people here, will remember — I think it was about six months ago — when a Member of the Fire Officers' Association criticised our fire services, saying that he felt that we were due a very big fire disaster with heavy loss of life. Most of us thought that the man was talking through his hat. Events have proved him right. Perhaps some of us may not have had the due respect for this expertise which we now have. The people studying those matters must have some way of knowing what is actually happening. Perhaps what he said was a wild guess, but it was far too close to the bone for comfort. When we do come to prepare these regulations, whether we like them or not, the experts in these fields must be consulted. We must know what they think must be done. We do not, of course, have to decide that what they propose is correct. If we decide that it is not, we shall have a very guilty conscience afterwards if it turns out that they knew an awful lot more than we thought about what was the right thing to do.

When this terrible tragedy occurred, there was heroism there which many of us will never know anything about. I believe that everybody connected with the tragedy displayed a courage which can only be displayed on an occasion like this. The ambulance service, the people who went to assist, the people in the hospitals, had a shocking job to do and they did that job magnificently. Having said that, we still must be prepared to deal with those problems in a different way, because let us not forget, while the plan in Dublin worked well and saved a lot of additional lives, that would not have been in operation if the tragedy had occurred in a country town. The numbers involved might be very much more than those involved in the Stardust Club on the night of the tragedy. We must take this as being not merely a Dublin thing. Many around the country seem to think that what happens in Dublin does not affect them. What happened in Dublin this time could have happened anywhere in Ireland under similar circumstances.

One thing should be included when licences are being granted for places like this. There must be a stipulation that, when panic bolts are put on the doors, there will be instructions as to how to open them. Without such instructions they are as dangerous as if the doors were locked. As well, there should be a number of people there to see to it that each door can be opened, and should be opened, at the correct time.

The tendency to try to keep out the people who try to get in for nothing is there: the tendency to lock doors when they should not be locked is there. I do not want to colour the possibilities here. They are matters which will have to be investigated because there is no point in having a staff of 40 or 50 if, when such staff are required at a time when people are frightened out of their lives trying to get out of a blazing building, they are not there to do the job.

In the amendment we have tabled we express full agreement that the Government must do something quickly. If we are to introduce legislation to deal with places of entertainment, I would point out that places of entertainment are not the only fire hazards. Some of our schools, some of our hospitals, some of our public buildings including this House, are not as safe as people might consider them to be. Therefore, when we come to deal with the whole question of this tragedy, provision for adequate compensation by way of insurance cover will have to be a proviso because there is no point in people coming along and commenting that it must be arson or malicious damage and that the people of the country should pay. Those who are getting the money out of places of entertainment should make the provision and unless it is laid down by law that they should have adequate coverage, that coverage will not be there.

Mr. Boland

This is one of those occasions when we in public life have a responsibility to speak and when perhaps none of us approaches the task with any great anticipation. On such occasions we would prefer not to speak, but the onus is on all of us this time to ensure, in the wake of a tragedy such as this, that every step will be taken to ensure that a tragedy of the like or scale of this will not be allowed to happen again. It would not be appropriate for us to apportion blame or to expect to be able to define at this time the areas that need consideration, but there is no doubt that on a wide variety of fronts in relation to fire prevention, protection and control, the adequacy of existing legislation and regulations can be questioned in regard to a number of areas. Some of them must be given urgent and overdue attention if we are to achieve a comprehensive fire prevention and fire fighting service.

We have an obligation in this House now to see to it on behalf of the people that all necessary steps will be taken immediately to bring about a truly comprehensive service. That is our responsibility and it is the least the public expect from this House at a time such as this. It is not for us to pass judgment but we have a duty and obligation to ensure that the tragedy of Saturday morning last can never happen again. We have a responsibility, which there is no great happiness in having to undertake, on behalf of those killed in the fire, but we also have a responsibility to their parents and relatives and to the general public, to the State and the institutions of the State, and the local authorities who are charged with the responsibility of dealing with matters such as this. We also have a responsibility to the operators and owners of places of public resort to ensure that the State will guide and instruct those people on how to maintain their premises at the highest possible level of public safety. I hope that responsibility of ours will be discharged adequately as a result of the debate in this House and in the local authorities.

I will explain the reason why my party thought it necessary to table several amendments to the Government's motion. Our amendment, No. 3, seeks, at the end of paragraph 1 of the Government's original motion, to insert the words:

"having made an interim report on these matters, to inquire into

(6) the adequacy of the existing legislation, statutory regulations and local authority by-laws for the purpose of securing safety in the case of fire in places of public resort, and the adequacy of the draft building regulations published in November 1976 to cover the dangers of fire arising in structures and furnishings

(7) the adequacy of inspection and control procedures and of the enforcement of the relevant laws, statutory regulations and by-laws

(8) the adequacy of public liability insurance requirements in relation to such matters and to make"

That would lead on into the original clause 2 of the Government's motion. We tabled that amendment because we felt there might be a danger, because of the combination of clauses 1 and 2 of the Government's motion, that the tribunal, having examined the circumstances surrounding the fire in the Stardust and having come to the several conclusions which they will undoubtedly come to, would then feel obliged by virtue of clause 2 of the Government's motion to begin to examine the operation of fire fighting and prevention measures in every local authority throughout the country and the adequacy of these matters in relation to all public buildings and perhaps private buildings.

In effect, we feared that the tribunal might find they had been assigned a job on which they could not present any reasonable conclusive report for a period spanning years. We do not believe it is the intention of the House or of the general public that the tribunal should be set up and should remain in operation for a period of years. The public want and demand and are entitled to expect that there should be an early as well as a comprehensive report on the circumstances surrounding the Stardust tragedy so that the steps the tribunal will regard as necessary can be implemented immediately.

That is why we tabled that amendment suggesting that the tribunal, having investigated under clause 1 in the Government's motion, would then make an interim report on those specific matters. That would allow the Government to take the necessary steps to amend legislation and to make regulations, and to provide necessary finance or personnel so that the local authorities would be allowed to revise their procedures as they might think best. That would allow the tribunal to go on to make observations on the adequacy or otherwise of the general legislative position and on local authorities by-laws and the efficacy or otherwise of the manner in which services are carried out at ground level by control staffs, where they are available, in local authorities.

The third aspect of our amendment deals with the area of public liability insurance. The situation at present is that there is no obligation on any operator to provide any degree of public liability insurance. In fact, if the Stardust Club is insured to the average level of public liability cover that is provided for similar ventures, probably the insurance liability cover does not extend beyond £1 million. I will not dwell on the adequacy or otherwise of that aspect in this House. I will let Members of the House draw their own conclusions as to whether a public liability cover of £1 million or even less is adequate——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

That would be a matter for the investigation to decide.

Dr. FitzGerald

Yes, if our amendment is accepted.

Mr. Boland

That is why paragraph (8) of our amendment No. 3 was inserted.

The entire question of the examination of public liability insurance is not included in the Government's motion. It is included in our amendment and I was endeavouring to explain to the House why it should be included. May I continue?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Yes. The Chair was worried that the House might get into something that would not be a matter for the House on this motion.

Mr. Boland

I am sure all of us would be worried about that. We felt that paragraph (8) should be included, that the tribunal should be invited to make comment on whether there should be a statutory obligation on persons who operate places where the public are likely to congregate by way of admission charge, and to decide whether there should be an obligation on the operators or owners of such places to carry a specified level of public liability insurance. That is why that sentence was included in our original amendment.

We considered that the adequacy of existing legislation and regulations was a fair point to have included. There is a range of Acts and regulations all of which purport in one way or another to bring regulation and order into this area but which collectively seem to have quite a number of weakness when one examines them in their collective effect. For instance, there are the Planning Acts of 1963 and 1976 which between them brought about the publication of the draft building regulations of 1976 which are referred to in our amendment. There is also the Public Dance Halls Act, 1935, under which any place operating as a public dance hall must seek an annual licence in the courts. There is the Fire Brigade Act, 1940, under which the sanitary authorities have certain obligations in respect of providing fire services and I shall refer to this shortly. There is also the 1890 Act referring to Dublin Corporation which allowed the corporation in 1934 to adopt by-laws in respect of protection from fire in places of public resort.

The extraordinary part of this situation is the fact that Dublin Corporation are the only authority in the country who have a specific code of by-laws with regard to protection from fire in places of public resort. They are probably the authority who have the largest number of control staff and who operate a fire service with probably the most sophisticated equipment and training. Yet even with that background and staff, the provision of such services have proved inadequate in the case of the tragedy to which we are referring because it appears to us that the background legislation is itself inadequate and defective.

The Fire Brigade Act, 1940, has been the subject of some comment in the past few days and presumably this is what the Minister for the Environment referred to when he issued his directive to the local authorities to investigate immediately and to close down any places that did not comply with the regulations. I am sorry to have to say that local authorities and fire chiefs do not have that power under existing legislation and to give the impression they have is merely to misinterpret the situation. Really it is a charade.

Under section 7 of the Fire Brigade Act, 1940, a fire chief, as the sanitary authority, having carried out an inspection can serve a notice on the owner of a premises ordering that the premises be closed. However, in section 7 there is also provision for recourse to the courts by the owner or operator in question. If he is not satisfied with the decision of the District Court he may appeal to a higher court. Effectively, the Fire Brigade Act, 1940, does not give to any sanitary authority or fire authority the power peremptorily to close premises that are found to be unsafe from the point of view of fire protection. Clearly that Act needs to be amended and it does not need a commission or tribunal to advise to that effect. For a number of years the fire chiefs and the sanitary authorities have indicated their unhappiness with the adequacy and efficiency of the 1940 Act. Let us hope that something will be done about it now.

Paragraph (6) of our second amendment reads as follows:

The adequacy of the legislation, statutory regulations and by-laws relevant to fire prevention and safety, so far as material to the granting of planning and by-law permission for, and the conduct, running, supervision, and official inspection and control of, the Stardust Club, and the adequacy of the legislation, observance and enforcement of such legislation, statutory regulations and by-laws in relation to the Stardust Club.

We felt it important that the tribunal should be able to state clearly how effective they regarded the various pieces of legislation and the control measures taken under such legislation in relation to the history of the planning application and decision, the by-laws applications and permissions granted and the various inspections carried out under the 1940 Act or under the 1935 Act in relation to dance halls. We felt it important that the tribunal should be able to show whether the legislation and the codes had operated efficiently. We felt it important that the tribunal should be able to advise whether procedures had been properly observed, that the tribunal should be able to say in relation to planning procedures, planning control, the observance of building by-laws in connection with the fire officers' requirements, that they had been carried out properly and efficiently, that all officers and servants had operated properly and, in accordance with their obligations, had performed their duties without let or hindrance.

I would like to refer to some of the more recent reports which have been issued and which are relevant in relation to this matter. In 1975 the then Department of Local Government published a major report on the fire services. I understand that many personnel in the fire service now feel that if the recommendations of that report were to be put into effect many of the areas that were possibly found wanting could be dealt with very effectively. It is rather disquieting that such a holocaust could take place in the area where the maximum number of controls and regulations apply. This is the only authority I know of that has an entire code specifically dealing with protection from fire in places of public resort. If such a fire could take place in that area, what would be the situation, as Deputy Tully asked, in some of the other public dance halls and places of public resort throughout the country? There is not as sophisticated a fire fighting service in many of those places as there is in this city. There is also no authority in those places to adopt a book of regulations in relation to protection from fire in public places. There is not the enforcement of control of building by-laws regulations which apply only in Dublin city, Limerick city and Dublin county at the moment.

This holocaust occurred in one of those control areas. There is an even looser situation outside them. Is there possibly an even more potentially disastrous situation in those areas? There is a great urgency about whatever actions are embarked on. It is very important that the result of the tribunal's findings in relation to the Stardust fire should be made available to everybody in public authorities and in Government as soon as possible so that they can be acted on.

We should remember that within the last year there was another major fire in a hotel in Bundoran. The Irish Press today reports:

A spokeman for the main insurance company involved has suggested that there will be no payment until the promised Government inquiry is held.

The report also states:

"The Minister of State at the Department of the Environment. Mr. Jackie Fahey, did indicate he was holding a public inquiry and we would have to wait for that." The spokesman for the Royal Insurance Group said.

The report in The Irish Press today also stated:

A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said they were awaiting the final Garda report before making a decision on whether there should be an inquiry.

In view of the tragic happenings last weekend and the unhappiness which was expressed after the tragic fire in Bundoran, there should be clarification from the Government about what steps they intend to take in relation to the Bundoran tragedy. There is an onus on the Government, which I feel sure they will recognise, to make their decision known in relation to the Bundoran fire.

Why have the draft building regulations not been published? The passing of the 1963 Planning Act, which came into force on 1 October 1964, required those regulations to be published. It is less than fair of the Minister in his speech to say:

The original technical draft, prepared by An Foras Forbhartha, was not prepared in a legal form and a completely new draft had to be prepared to ensure that the regulations when made would be legally viable.

All that happened. The report of An Foras Forbartha was made to the Department around 1970, so I presume they had a fair length of time to convert the regulations into the legal framework, in which they were when they eventually appeared on 29 November 1976. The Minister invited the public at that stage to make their comments by the end of May 1977. The only thing that happened was that apparently so many comments were made that the Department ran out of the draft building regulations and they reprinted the book in its draft form without change during 1978.

It is quite pointless, if we are talking about introducing reform of legislation or new areas of control to give teeth to the officers who must monitor situations like this, to say as the Minister said today:

I now propose to issue within the next ten days the draft of the regulations with amendments and within six weeks to publish a revised version incorporating the amendments. I intend that they be used by local authorities, industrial and professional bodies in their operations as if they had statutory backing.

Since they were published in 1976 they have been used by the local authorities, professional and other bodies as if they had statutory backing. Since the original British requirements were published piecemeal over the last 20 years the requirements on which this volume is based, these regulations have been and are being used on a day to day basis as if they had statutory backing.

However, this does not alter the fact that although the fire chiefs, the planners or the building control personnel are exhorting people to abide by those regulations they have not got the power to enforce them. As long as they have to approach somebody with a tome as large as the ceiling of this chamber and say: "I want you to comply with this" and they are asked "Why?" their answer is: "We are implementing them as if they had statutory backing". Then, if somebody wants to be irresponsible enough, he can turn his face against it. Those regulations should be adopted or they should not. If they are appropriate, if the 500 observations which were made on the 1976 amendments have been considered in the last three and a half years and if decisions have been taken on them, the amendments should be put into the draft regulations and adopted.

The Government should not, as was done with the Water Pollution Act and various other measures over the last three years since domestic rates were abolished, pass new legislation which involves the employment of personnel and expenditure of money by the local authorities, hand it over to them and tell them to get on with it without giving them the money to get on with it. As everybody knows, one of the main reasons the fire services have not progressed during the last few years is because of the consistent shortage of available money to expand any of the necessary services which needs expansion in Dublin, Kinsale, Skibbereen, Bundoran or any other place throughout the country.

The same applies in relation to the draft building regulations. The Department are merely going through a charade of publishing draft regulations which they hope will have the effect of being used as if they had statutory backing, because they know too well that if those draft regulations become building regulations the local authorities will need to employ hundreds of trained professional personnel to implement, to monitor and to control them. Unless those personnel are employed, it would be an insult if the regulations were to be adopted, given the force of law and then it was found impossible to implement them. After 17 years let us cut that out and either adopt the regulations or decide we are unable to do so. Let us not try to have it both ways.

I agree with the Minister that the assessors appointed to the tribunal are well qualified and will give the learned gentlemen appointed to conduct the inquiry every assistance necessary. It is strange, and I am sure fire officers will find it very strange indeed, that their request that the chief fire adviser to the Minister for the Environment is not referred to in the statement and is not included as one of the assessors to the judge who is to conduct the tribunal. There has been over a period of years a most unhappy situation in the Department of the Environment, as there has been in a number of local authorities where people operating the fire services have expressed a sense of grievance at the manner in which they have to make their reports and recommendations. They feel they should be given direct access to county managers and, as a result, there has been a demarcation dispute.

This debate should not be sidetracked into that area, but, in relation to the chief fire adviser to the Minister for the Environment, it should be explained to the House why that officer, the main officer charged with responsibility for advising the Department of the Environment of the adequacy of the fire services throughout the country and what needs to be done to improve them, should have seen fit to take court action against the Department because he felt he was not allowed to carry out his duties in the manner he felt obliged to do, as he saw them within his terms of reference. I do not know on whose side right or wrong rested in that instance. Fire officers are very much in agreement with the chief fire adviser to the Minister for the Environment in this matter. No later than last Monday one of the fire officers appearing on television called on the Government to include the chief fire adviser, Mr. John Connolly, on the tribunal. The situation in relation to this officer needs clarification. It should be clarified for all of us who have some knowledge of the area and the unhappy situation that exists in relation to the operation of advice on fire matters to the Minister for the Environment.

One area was not referred to at all by the Minister, and that was possibly because it might more appropriately be the business of the Minister for Industry, Commerce and Tourism. It is an area in which we have a particular concern and which may have relevance to the inquiries of the tribunal. Consequently, it was referred to in our amendment No. 3, where we referred to the need to cover the dangers of fire arising in structures and furnishings. The draft building regulations which I referred to lay down standards for building components and materials which ought to be used in construction and have a fire retardant nature, the widths of gangways and alleyways, but they do not attempt to deal with the type of furnishing that should be provided in public places. It appears to us that there is urgent need for some form of regulation to be made in relation to furnishing, especially seating, that uses polyurethane foam as its main component. The House will be aware that in October the Minister made an order, S.I. No. 298, which sought to limit the use of certain types of polyurethane foam in seating sold for domestic purposes. However, for some reason or other, while this polyurethane foam, if it does not pass certain tests such as flame and smoulder tests, is not to be used in furniture for domestic purposes after 1982 and in between is to carry an advertisement clearly indicating that fact, the order does not set out to deal with furniture used in public places.

Anyone who heard the technical evidence of the last few days and earlier in relation to the effect on polyurethane when it begins to break down under the effect of immense heat must realise the extremely dangerous nature of this material. As polyurethane begins to break down it gives off heavy black fumes and toxic gas. It produces carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, which is toxic and which, if I am not mistaken, was one of the gases used in trench warfare in the first world war. This is the most common material used in the interior of seating provided in public places. Some of the gases emitted could have the effect of completely immobilising and knocking out someone within 15 seconds. The material also issues heavy black smoke and, as it breaks down further, an intensely hot, molten tar-like substance begins to float in the smoke and ignites anything combustible it comes in contact with. That is a frightening prospect to think about in relation to most seats in most public places.

I wonder, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Minister, people in the Public Gallery and people in the Press Gallery, if we were to consider for a moment if the seats in this Chamber were filled with material like that — of course they are not — but, if they were to burn and give off those fumes, what panic and mayhem it would create in the House. Yet there are no steps taken to introduce any form of regulation or control in relation to the further supplying of that kind of material for use in public buildings. The regulations in relation to private houses are fairly lenient.

I thought that the reason for the continuing use of the material was that there was no real replacement. In today's Irish Times it is stated:

Mr. Hugh Reynolds, secretary of the National Manufacturers Association, which represents about 75 firms in this country, said the exclusion of non-domestic furniture should be reconsidered, and more thought should be given to types of foam other than polyurethane.

"It is quite possible to treat foam so that it will be fire-resistant and will not give off poisonous gases. It would be more expensive, but its cost would come down if there was more demand for it and it could be manufactured on a large scale. It is really a question of paying a bit more for safety," he added.

The Minister for the Environment dealt with a number of matters relevant to his Department. If the question of the type of materials used for the interior of seating in either public or private places is a matter appropriate to some other Minister, the Taoiseach should take up with whatever Minister it is and with the IIRS the possibility of introducing adequate and stringent regulations in relation to the type of materials that may be used. One of the difficulties in relation to regulations is that they only apply to materials supplied after the date they are adopted. There is need to investigate the materials used in existing public buildings and to advise the owners of these buildings if the polyurethane materials they are using are regarded as a potential hazard. I have no doubt that after the dreadful events of last weekend the vast majority of owners of public places will be only too anxious to take whatever steps are necessary to replace any materials that might be in some way offensive or dangerous. But as the situation obtains this polyurethane material used in so much public seating is a potential killer. Many people in public buildings around the country are being invited to sit on a potential time bomb. Therefore there is an urgent obligation on this House to investigate that matter also.

The Taoiseach said at the weekend the Government would undertake to meet the expenses of any malicious damage type of claim that might be lodged.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

This is hardly relevant to the motion before the House. I have given the Deputy plenty of latitude but he is now going outside the terms of the motion.

Mr. Boland

I might just make the point that while I accept that a malicious damage claim has been lodged that claim becomes liable for payment only after a court case and a ruling by a justice that the injury was in fact malicious in nature. Therefore it would be wrong for anybody, the general public or otherwise, to assume that demands of that nature would automatically be paid out merely because a claim had been lodged. But in fairness to the local authority involved, there should be a clear indication to the House, or to Dublin Corporation, that if a claim such as this is pursued, in the same way as the claims in relation to the bombings in the mid-seventies and other items were met by central government funds, this item would be met also by central government funds irrespective of the fact that the provision for such claims has been reduced in the Estimates for the Department of the Environment from a sum of £3 million last year to a figure of £1 million this year.

I know the various items raised will be examined and reported on by the tribunal. Deputy Tully raised the question of the adequacy of the materials used within the club, whether or not there was installed an emergency lighting system; if such were installed, whether or not it operated and, if it did operate, why more people were unable to avail of it. Then there was the adequacy or otherwise of the water pressure in that area of Dublin at that time of night. In fairness to Dublin Corporation I should say that I know that many local authorities reduce pressure at night time and times when there is not such a heavy demand on it so as to fill the mains in certain areas, especially those situated far from reservoirs and also because of the amount of capital works outstanding. But if this is an area warranting attention then it is one that does not need the conclusions of the tribunal to improve it. If water pressures are inadequate in certain respects at night time, on the occasion of major events such as this one, then it should be possible to provide personnel with the fire service who are able to open the necessary valves in the regional area, thereby providing as much pressure as necessary — if that turns out to have been a problem in any way; I do not know.

Deputy Tully made the point also that many of the inspections in relation to fire safety are carried out in the day time. I agree entirely with him that the bulk of inspections in relation to public places that operate at night time, and particularly late at night, need to be carried out while they are so operating, while they are carrying on in the normal way. It is pointless if most inspections take place on a cold, wet, Monday or Tuesday morning because that is not the appropriate time. We ought also perhaps examine whether the personnel employed in public halls like this should be required to undergo some basic system of training in fire drill in the event of fire, under the supervision of qualified fire officers of the local authorities.

I referred to the serious lack of money many local authorities experience whenever they endeavour to improve any of their services in respect of which they see a need for improvement, refurbishing or indeed the need for the provision of a completely new service. As long as local authorities continue to have their budgets restricted to increases which over the last few years have amounted to approximately the equivalent of two-thirds the national annual inflation rate, then for so long will such local authorities be expected to perform an impossible financial juggling act. If they are to carry out major reforms in one arm of their local authority service then it can only be at the expense and to the detriment of another arm.

In that regard I want to give the House a clear example. In June 1977 the local authority of which I am a member resolved that the firemen operating part-time stations in the county should be trained in the use of breathing apparatus and supplied with breathing apparatus not, one would have thought, an unfair or outrageous request. We discovered that it was impossible to provide training for those part-time firemen who so very generously give of their services outside their normal working hours for very little recompense. They would need to be trained outside normal working hours. They work at other tasks during the day and are merely on call in the event of an emergency. We discovered that the personnel who could train them were fulltime officers of the fire service who had received promotion from the basic fireman of the line grade. Because they had received that promotion, because they were now working at desk jobs, the Department of the Environment would not allow them to operate outside normal working hours because they were not prepared to pay them the unsocial hours content which forms such an important element of a fireman's pay. Because those officers would not be paid unsocial hours they were not prepared to work what they regarded as unsocial hours and train the part-time firemen.

That matter was resolved some time in 1979. This is February 1981. The part-time firemen in the stations in County Dublin still have not been trained in the use of breathing apparatus, and are still not entitled to its use, that almost four years after the local authority involved passed a specific resolution that they should receive that training and be supplied with that apparatus. Again that was a question of money, one solely and simply of the financial provisions made available to the fire service. That was the situation in the Dublin fire service over the last few years when it became, at times, a financial burden on men to receive promotion, a situation in which if a fireman did receive promotion — above the rank of fireman on the line — he lost his benefits, his overtime and discovered that the men he was ostensibly in charge of were earning far more money than he, their supervising officer. No authority can be happy with a situation like that. Any Department that allows such a situation to continue, one in which they insist on officers being paid less than the men can expect only trouble and discontent. We cannot condone a situation in which there is no financial inducement given to a man to apply for promotion.

I gave that merely as an example, not by way of blaming any one individual or Department, but rather as an example of the difficulties under which local authorities labour, as an example of the fact that when there is not an incident, a dreadful occurrence, a holocaust that directs the spotlight of the nation's grief, the nation's demand for attention centrally on a single area, when there is not that sort of attention given. When the carving knife for financial restraint is produced, those are the sorts of areas very often turned to. I am not blaming any particular individual, any particular Department or any particular party. I am not saying that any one party necessarily might be better than any other in relation to that. There are certain areas that have not got the financial attention or indeed the personnel appointed to them they ought have had. Obviously the nation now realises what some of us felt, that this is one of these services.

The Minister referred to the Fire Prevention Council in his speech and explained that they have now agreed to set up a task force, a sort of a flying column which would appear to hold out great hope as to briefing the local authorities and helping them. The Fire Prevention Council was set up a couple of years ago and was jointly funded by the insurers and the Department of the Environment. It has only been in operation a couple of years and its main task, through advertisement and education, has been to make the public more aware of the measures necessary for fire prevention and control. Last year its agreed budget, funded jointly by the Department of the Environment and the insurers, was £100,000. This is just a new body and so is still exploring the areas where it needs to spend money, the areas in which it can most efficiently advertise its message, the areas in which it can best educate. So it sought an increase in its budget from £100,000 to £146,000. The insurers indicated that they were in agreement with that in principle. The Department of the Environment said that they would not agree to the budget being increased by any more than 5 per cent, from £100,000 to £105,000. This happened within the last few weeks. That is the degree of importance put on the Fire Prevention Council a couple of weeks ago. Today the Minister says that he has met representatives of the Fire Prevention Council on a number of occasions during the past few days. Of course he has. He has told the insurers to reconsider having to pay half of the £105,000 now. He said:

...in the light of the discussions I have now decided that a special Task Force will be immediately established under the direction of the present chairman of the council, Mr. Geoffrey Cronin. I intend that the Task Force will liaise closely with local authorities in the latter's role on fire prevention and keep me fully briefed.... It will also augment the efforts of the Fire Prevention Council on such matters as publicity, advertising, seminars, preparation of instruction leaflets, all aimed at increasing public awareness of fire hazards...

A couple of weeks ago the Fire Prevention Council would have had to reduce the moneys they spent on publicity, advertising, seminars, the preparation of instruction leaflets all aimed at increasing public awareness because 5 per cent, as we all know, would not go any way towards meeting the real increase in costs in the coming year.

I have given those examples to show that there is not an awareness on the part of all of us involved in public life of the very important necessity for spending adequate money on fire prevention and on education about fire prevention and on setting up the necessary services in the local authorities throughout the country. Without seeking in any way to denigrate the services provided by other authorities, I am quite certain that, because of the very size of it and its very nature, the service, the equipment, the personnel and training attached to the Dublin fire brigade service are probably the best in the country. Yet it finds itself with a backup of inadequate legislation, regulations not adopted, no controls on the type of furnishing and the other areas in relation to the disincentive to promotional opportunities. It finds itself in the situation that we are discussing today. So the need is not for refurbishing, not for a polishing up of the situation. The need is for a renovation of the entire fire prevention procedures and a change of attitude to the provision of fire services right throughout the country.

It was for that reason that we entered our two amendments, rather reluctantly, as we had originally hoped that it might be possible to secure, by some prior discussion, an agreed motion put forward by all of the parties and Members of the House without necessity for any amendments whatsoever to be entered. When the Government's motion was published we felt it was necessary to enter our amendment No. 3 and subsequently the other amendment which I presume is No. 5 and which we entered earlier today.

In the last part of his speech the Minister referred to the setting up of a commission of inquiry and he said that the Government has in mind as a separate matter the establishment of a commission of inquiry. I want to indicate to the House that we would be most anxious that both of our amendments would be accepted and adopted and included by the Government in their motion before the House or, otherwise, if they feel that they can give to the House a specific commitment that a commission of inquiry is going to be set up and that the terms of our amendment No. 3, items 6, 7 and 8, will be specifically included as part of the terms of that commission of inquiry, then possibly we might be in a position to agree to the withdrawal of amendment No. 3. But I am a little disappointed that we have not been given firmer information and more definite views as to the commission and as to its terms of reference. I would hope that whoever is replying to this discussion can make that provision clear because it would be regrettable if we were not able to reach, in this House on this very sad day, agreement amongst all the parties as to the most efficient steps which can be taken as expeditiously as possible, really on behalf of all those young people who died in that fire because we have personal and collective responsibility to them and to their relatives and we should surely make every effort to unite as a Parliament on behalf of the nation in guaranteeing that the like can never happen again.

Again one has to ask why it is that this appears to have come in response to the amendments put forward by the Members of the Opposition groups. Why did it not originate from the Government? One has to concede that the Government now appear to be taking the issue of the Stardust seriously, although one recollects that early on the main provision, that I heard was the employment of 50 members of the Garda to find out the cause of the fire. Now we have a very much more comprehensive group of provisions, which we would like to extend and amend. Why did the Government not conclude, as those of us in the Opposition concluded, that this has gone on long enough? We have seen too much of this kind of thing and this kind of tragedy. The lives of too many people have been lost. We have listened to too many complaints from too many authoritative sources. I would like to quote them because I have to confess that I myself had a crash course in the whole business of fire prevention and safety. I cannot pretend that I am an authority on it and I do not so pretend. Why is it that the Government themselves did not put down a motion and then say "In addition, because we are taking this matter so seriously, we accept that there has been neglect over a very long time and we now propose also to introduce the necessary authority in respect of giving statutory powers to the 1976-77 Draft Building Regulations"? In addition, we have heard so much in the national press and some excellent TV programmes, especially "Today Tonight" a couple of nights ago.

Mr. D. Andrews

It was an outrageous programme. It should never have been shown in the light of the decision taken.

Dr. Browne

In the light of the demands made I hope I will substantiate the case I made. Why did the Government not act — I have to use the word — in a more responsible way arising out of this decision? Why did they not widen greatly the components of their response into the motion about the Stardust and into a commission on the broad state of the fire services, and at long last introduce the building materials regulations which I understand go back as far as 1963 and anyway to 1970? The Report to the Minister for Local Government 1975 which I am sure all Deputies have seen, states that this will take effect on a certain date and so on; but, in fact, the regulations were never implemented. I do not wish to introduce any rancour into the debate but I understand it was as a result of powerful lobbying by the building suppliers, that these regulations were not introduced. That excuse could no longer be permitted.

There is so much emotion, distress and so many harrowing experiences by mostly working class youngsters and their parents that it is difficult to know how accidents of this kind could happen. I asked for the extension of the motion because I want to know about the role of the regulatory bodies, including the Department of the Environment, local authorities and existing fire services in respect of the general provisions for fire and fire prevention, means and systems of emergency escape from fire, their adequacy in enforcement and any other matters that the tribunal consider relevant to the inquiry. This widens the motion to some extent but I do not think it would be desirable to restrict members of the tribunal to a period of time, say between 10 o'clock and 5 o'clock the following morning, and try to extrapolate from that assumptions, conclusions and recommendations which would not have the limitations of the very narrow base of that few hours of the Stardust episode.

In the whole exercise of fire precautions, safey and handling of fires generally, there is an enormous hinterland outside the Stardust, Bundoran and all these other disasters which happened. I do not think that a tribunal can help us to find the truth, unless they are allowed to follow leads outside the Stardust wherever they may bring them. I am not interested in looking for a scapegoat. It is much more serious than that. I am more interested in trying to prevent this from happening again and learning from our experience. Therefore, the tribunal must be permitted to go back to the Department of the Environment, the local authorities, the various officers, administrators and the various individuals who took decisions. They must learn what decisions they took and why they took them. Their general concept of their job in fire prevention, the means and systems of the emergency services will also have to be examined. The attitude, limitations and difficulties of the Minister for the Environment, will also have to be examined. Deputy Boland referred to financial difficulties.

I have a mild private grievance about this because of a fire in a small factory on a river in May 1978. It was an extraordinary case because it was written up in the days of investigative journalism of Hibernia. They wanted to find out what was the inspector's report on that occasion. Recently, the editor, John Mulcahy, pointed out that when he got to the local authority and asked what were the terms of the inspector's report, he was told, eventually, that it was classified information and he was not allowed to see it. Is that so? I know the tribunal will have full powers in this regard but it is quite obvious that it is important information which, in that case, was with Dublin Corporation.

In reply to my question, the Minister, Deputy Barrett, said at column 1888 of the Official Report of 25 May 1978:

I would refer the Deputy to the statement relating to the fire service which I made in introducing the Estimate for my Department in the House on 15 March 1978. I indicated then that all local authorities had been asked to conduct a review of the operation of their fire services to determine how those services match up to the needs of today. The reviews are comprehensive examinations extending to all aspects of both fire fighting and other operations, and of fire prevention work. They cover 11 separate aspects under 65 subheadings. Accordingly, I do not see the need for an inquiry into the state of the fire services — that stage was completed in the Report of the Working Party on the Fire Service which was laid before each House of the Oireachtas in July 1975. The report made wide ranging recommendations on the operational service, fire prevention, structure and qualification, training and miscellaneous matters. Work is in progress in all of these and, in particular, on the recommendation that for each local fire authority area there should be a separate assessment of the strength and adequacy of the service. These are the reviews to which I have referred and, according as the fire brigade authorities submit their reports, they are being considered in my Department and being followed up with such inquiries, advice or assistance as may be appropriate.

Dr. Browne: Can the Minister say why it is that there appears to be such disquiet amongst the fire officers in relation to the fire services? As I understand it, they have been anxious that there should be some sort of inquiry into these.

Mr. Barrett: The chief fire officer seem to have a certain amount of disquiet from some public statements and so on. We have asked for a review of each local authority in relation to fire services and what is required in their areas. There are quite a number of these reports already in my Department being processed and examined. There are some still to come, but we are treating it as a matter that should be dealt with as quickly as possible. On the reason for there being disquiet amongst the fire officers I will make more inquiries and try to let the Deputy know what are these specific reasons.

Dr. Browne: Surely the Minister must know when this is shown by people in their position — they are the authorities on this subject and know more about it than any of us — that, in these circumstances, the Minister must accept that the process he is using at present is not one that satisfies them, is probably not going to be an effective one and that is why they continue to be disquieted despite all the things he and his predecessor said they were and are doing.

Deputy Keating intervened, and I quote:

Is the Minister aware that the recruitment of executive members of the fire associations is very difficult from the point of view of the salary structure which is unrealistic and the question of qualifications which appears to be exceptionally demanding in some cases, that local authorities are experiencing real difficulty in getting response to advertisements for staff at that level?

I am interested in the future but I think Deputies will note the similarity of much of the speech we had today from the new Minister regarding expeditious action and so on. We have heard it all before. It is on the record from this group of Ministers who are in charge of this study.

In the report of the working party on the fire services the point is made that it was not part of the task of that working group to make a detailed assessement of the strength and adequacy of the fire service in each area but that the question of assessement was necessary as a basis for the fire operation plans that they had recommended. The Minister may be able to tell us whether that detailed examination has been undertaken. I suspect that it has not been undertaken and I am supported in this suspicion by a report in the Irish Independent of Monday last, February 16, under the headline “Inadequate prevention policy lashed by fire chief”. To back up my case, I am quoting the various authorities and in this context I quote from that report as follows:

A strong attack was made yesterday on the poor fire prevention measures operated by the Republic's local authorities and the lack of a proper national policy by the Department of the Environment.

The Chairman of the Fire Officers' Association, Captain Michael Maguire, of Waterford, said that they had been unhappy down through the years at the level of fire prevention measures and had, at one stage, sought a judicial inquiry.

He pointed out that it had come as no great surprise to him, or his association, that such a dreadful tragedy has happened in the Stardust Club, as they had been warning that this was bound to happen some day.

Captain Maguire said that their association had been making representations to the Department of the Environment for many years on the need for a proper fire service and some work had been done in the fire-fighting side, but the fire prevention side still lagged very much behind.

With rapid industrialisation and the erection of more large buildings, particularly ones to which the public had access, there was need for fire prevention work and the examination of plans under the planning Acts to ensure that the recommendations of the fire officers are carried out. There should also be spot inspections as a follow-up.

Captain Maguire said that there was a great lack of fire prevention staff. Very few local authorities had any other than what the chief fire officer himself could do and other officers in the services, who were more operational officers than fire prevention officers.

He blamed the Department of the Environment for this state of affairs.

Captain Maguire said that they had sought an inquiry into the country's fire service and they had wanted this to be headed by a judge. The fire service needed to be investigated and the blame laid where it properly lay.

He pointed out that in relation to the proposed inquiry the activities of the Department of the Environment should be investigated.

I am attempting to act on behalf of these people who are the authorities in this area and for that reason I included the fire services in my amendment. The report continues:

Captain Maguire said the people of the country could be subjected to another holocaust similar to the Stardust inferno because of inadequate legislation and lack of money for fire prevention services.

There were a number of counties throughout the country where the post of chief fire officer was vacant, some for a couple of years. These posts were vacant because the Department was holding new terms of office.

Mr. D. Andrews

I expect that Captain Maguire will be giving evidence to the Tribunal.

To whom is the Deputy referring?

Dr. Browne

To Governments, successive Governments and as far you were a member of them, I suppose you played your part.

Mr. Fahey

Mind yourself.

Dr. Browne

What is he saying "Mind yourself"? Childish talk. We are discussing the death of 44 youngsters in Artane, Dublin, and the maiming and injuring, probably permanently of about 150 others and it comes down to corner-boy stuff.

An Ceann Comhairle

Please, Deputy.

Dr. Browne

It has been suggested that these are matters that should properly be considered in a commission. I do not agree. Certainly, in my constituency — I do not know about the rest of Ireland but if it has any, and I think it has; it has shown its deep feelings, fellow feelings for fellow citizens — I do not think that they are in the mood for a commission. There is an enormous, beautiful, Chippendale cupboard down there with about 400 commissions' recommendations in it. We know what happened to those commissions and their recommendations. You can take this commission, this 1975 fire report. What was done about it? Perhaps the Minister might tell us in his reply. He might tell us why the 1976 Building Materials Regulations were not legalised. Why are we still waiting for them?

Surely the tribunal will have to go outside the Stardust to find out about the water supply, the strange inadequacy of that supply about which there have been questions, the size of the staff, the training of the staff. Who lays down these regulations, who sees that they are carried out? What does the local authority insist on? To what extent do the Department of the Environment impose any, or does it impose all its specific regulations? Would it not be wrong that the tribunal should be limited to the environs of the Stardust? Every single paragraph in the Government's motion has the words "Stardust Club" in it — very circumscribed. In Artane they talk about a cover-up in a blunter way. Is there an attempt to cover-up? This is the danger. Possibly there are truths there that will be disagreeable for the Government, but that does not prevent us from insisting that whatever is the truth shall be found.

May I draw attention to this report to the Minister for Local Government? It has an interesting appendix. In appendix G, page 111, under the Factories Act 1955 section — the Minister can enlighten me if I am wrong on this — it is stated, and I suppose it will come under the general heading of fire prevention, that the occupier of a factory is liable to a fine of up to £50 where certificate is not in force and a fine not exceeding £10 per day for a continuing offence. That is for a local authority, county borough council, borough council, urban district council and so on who are responsible. Surely the tribunal will have to go back to the bodies and would have a right to go back to them and ask them if they think £50 is enough. Is that what they will find or will they find anything in that case to which I referred earlier, the clothing factory on the Quays? Or was it £10.

There is another interesting reference on page 109 referring to public dance halls. It appears that 1975 is the date on this and I presume it is the latest regulation in relation to public dance hall premises. The conditions of a licence may include "such conditions and restrictions as the licencing authority determine" and so on. The regulating authority is the District Court with right of appeal to the Circuit Court; enforcement is the responsibility of the Garda. Under penalties it provides a fine not exceeding £10 per day where the premises are used without a licence; a fine not exceeding £5 per day for a breach of licence, apparently: £5 per day where a breach of licence occurs with licence subject to revocation. That is hard to credit, is it not?

About a year ago there was a case in France similar to the Stardust. The penalty there was: the Lord Mayor got 11 years in gaol and I think the chief of police got eight years. What gentle people we are — a fine not exceeding £10 or a fine not exceeding £5 per day. We are careful where we exercise our gentility, are we not? Surely that is outrageous. Surely that needs amendment. Surely the tribunal must have the right to inquire into conditions of this kind in circumstances of the appalling nature of the Stardust holocaust the other night?

Should the tribunal not be able to ask the fire authority, the local authority or the Minister whether there should be 100,000 gallons of white wood spirit stored beside the Stardust Club and an enormous area of timber? The Stardust Club went up like a bomb and, just beside it, there are these very dangerous substances. Is that permissible? What would have happened if there had been an extension of the fire? I suspect that these would be bomb-making materials par excellence.

I was on a programme with Father Cleary, who made an extraordinary comment about the conditions under which these places operate. He operates in all sorts of clubs of this kind all over Ireland, being involved with a number of priests in a show, and he said that as far as he was concerned the Stardust was one of the best of them. What about the others? What are we going to do about them? This really is what we are concerned with here and now. That is why we must take effective action. The Minister must give a better assurance of speedy action than the one I have read out from his predecessor.

We have asked for a review of each local authority and so on. As far as I can gather from some fire officers, there are no serious fire services in many local authority areas and the officers cannot do anything. We have now a new Minister and I wish him every success in his enormous task. There is a terrible backlog of work undone by his predecessors, for which he is not to blame at all. We all should wish him well. He should not simply recapitulate the unfounded expectations of his predecessor.

Deputy Boland referred to the fact that this report does not include furnishings. Deputy Andrews has left the House but I trust nobody will mind my referring to the most interesting disclosures from a man called Skelton, a forensic expert on this stuff which we use, apparently in furnishings and which is not included in the building materials regulation. The Minister should tell us what action he proposes to take in regard to it. I understand that this material was probably the most damaging part of the whole building, responsible for poisonous fumes which suffocated the youngsters.

An Ceann Comhairle

Surely the Deputy will accept that this subject will come before the tribunal?

Dr. Browne

The Minister has agreed to give legal power to the Building Materials, 1976, Regulations, which is a separate matter. I hope like Deputy Boland, that the Minister will include, as it is not included at present, expanded polystyrene fillings. Apparently this apparently highly dangerous and, at a certain stage, explosive material is used all over the country, in pubs, clubs, discos, dance-halls, everywhere. After the Woolworths fire in Manchester an experiment was carried out with ten square feet of this material. It was set alight with a match and in one minute it had reached over 1,000 degrees — they could not measure the heat produced. It exceeded 23 MW — 23,000 one-bar electric fires. This highlights the great difficulties which the Minister faces in attempting to protect people, in the light of the new materials which are so marvellous in some ways and so highly dangerous in others. What does he propose to do on this particular matter? I found one fire chief very impressive on that, in my opinion, magnificent Today Tonight programme, Captain McMahon, who was asked what he thought was going to happen as a result of the latest disaster. He said: “I give it a year. There will be little or nothing done.” Perhaps he is wrong; I hope he is. Between the Government and the Opposition some steps would appear to have been taken, first in respect of the Government motion, amendments to which have been accepted. I would like my amendment to be accepted. In respect of the distribution of building materials, the new provision is a very valuable one, brought up to date and amended. It is very important, as Deputy Boland has said, that statutory authority be given to these provisions. Can the Minister give us some sort of time scale as to when he proposes to give the statutory powers?

There is also the question of finance. I wish the Minister well in his struggles with the Department of Finance and hope that he will be successful because, otherwise as Deputy Boland said, to use my own words of yesterday, it will all be simply fine phrases and word spinning by politicians again. The public expect leadership from them.

The fire officers have made the point, which I suspect is a valid point, that we politicians do not do anything about fire prevention or fire precautions because the public are not greatly interested in it, and it was said very bluntly that there are no votes in fire precautions. That is not true, but from the point of view of our responsibility as lawmakers we must show leadership. We have to try to help people to understand the appalling risks involved in their daily lives. We have a responsibility, no matter what the cost to try to protect them from the dangers which all of us face every day.

Mr. Quinn

We are still burying the dead from this tragedy, and this House should treat this matter with the degree of respect such an actuality demands. It is the view of my party that we should not be continuing to talk about the terms of reference of the inquiry. This House should be able to reach agreement quickly, without great debate, on the terms of reference of an inquiry into a tragedy. It is not the function of the House and it is not the intention of this party to trail over the possible cause of events.

In so far as I can be I will be brief and to the point on our amendment, the one which was not accepted by the Government. First of all, I should like to say that we appreciate that the Government accepted the second amendment. For the life of me I cannot understand why the other amendment was not accepted. The Minister for the Environment has not given us any indication as to why.

Let me reiterate that we are only talking about the terms of reference of the tribunal, absolutely nothing else. We accept that the Government have moved fast, that they recognise the extent of the tragedy. We welcome the establishment of the tribunal and make no comments in relation to the tribunal's composition, except that we accept that the members appear to be eminently qualified. We agree there have been changes in the fire services, though not all those that are needed. Therefore I will come to the one matter that has me on my feet, our amendment. I would not be believed if I went home to my family and told them I was not home for tea because the debate went on so long. I would not be believed if I were to say that what delayed me and the House was that we wished to substitute for the section of the motion which states

the measures, and their adequacy, taken on and before the 14th February, 1981, to prevent and detect, and to minimise and otherwise to deal with fire at the Stardust Club.

the words:

the measures and their adequacy, including the Draft Building Regulations of the Department of the Environment and the statutory provisions and regulations which are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment and the Local Authority, taken on or before the 14 February 1981, to prevent and detect, and to minimise and otherwise deal with fire at the Stardust Club.

I would not be believed if I said that this House had spent all this time, and in particular that the Government had refused to accept such an innocuous amendment, or what would appear to be such. Alas, it is not innocuous, because it has not been put in here for the purpose of the Labour Party being able to say "We have an amendment in".

We do not want to divide the House. The House should not divide on an issue like this. God knows we have enough differences of opinion, genuine differences, not to be manufacturing them. Let us be clear about one thing. The Minister for the Environment, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health and Social Welfare have been living with this since Friday night-Saturday morning. They have had the text of this amendment so that they could see what we were proposing, but they still refused to accept it without giving an adequate explanation.

The Minister for the Environment spoke about the Draft Building Regulations, how they were drafted by An Foras Forbartha in 1976 and circulated — I remember it well; they came in the old form An Foras Forbartha used. The industry attempted to use the regulations. Many submissions were made in that context, referred to in the industry as "performance specifications" rather than precise detailed recipes on how to build a wall or a window. According to the Minister, there were 600 in all. They were subsequently published in legal form, with about eight or nine schedules attached, under the combined 1963 and 1976 Acts. It is a surprise to me to be told they require legislation to enact them. My clear understanding has been that they could be brought into effect by ministerial order, because the framework of law within which they would be given statutory effect is embodied in the two pieces of legislation, the two Planning and Development Acts.

The Minister has said, and I do not doubt him, that they would need legislation to be brought into effect now. I should like him to say what is defective about the 1963 and 1976 Planning Acts which makes it necessary now to have specific legislation. That is a secondary matter, but an important one.

I respectfully suggest that the House is too objective. We are obliged to set up a tribunal of inquiry to do a job quickly and effectively. The sole concern of everyone, including the relatives of the dead, is to ensure that a thing like this will never happen again. This side of the House cannot do anything about that: the Government have the majority and the power and the wherewithal — perhaps they have not got it — to ensure this will not recur. It is one thing to make a mistake; that is human. But to pretend that a mistake has not been made amounts to a cover up, when this House should be open and clear. The Minister should state clearly the difficulties in implementing the Draft Building Regulations. I know there are difficulties — anybody in the building industry knows it — but let the House do its job properly and find out how we can implement them.

The specific reason why we want the terms of reference to take into account the Draft Building Regulations has been provided in a speech of the Minister for the Environment. He said, correctly, that since their publication in 1976 and their reprinting in 1978, local authorities and the professions — including my own, the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland — have been asked to regard them as a code of practice. I was at the annual dinner in the Shelbourne Hotel last year when the Minister said that, and we welcomed it. Therefore, is it not appropriate that such an inquiry now should find out whether such a voluntary code of practice has been adhered to? Is it not appropriate to discover how responsible the industry and the professions have been in seeing that the Minister's request was carried out in terms of regarding this as a non-statutory voluntary code of practice? That is all we are asking. We are not apportioning blame, we are not looking for culprits. We are trying to save lives and to see how effective were the non-statutory building regulations. To our complete amazement the Taoiseach — and let us have no doubt about the fact that the Taoiseach is running this — and his Minister for the Environment have signalled that they are rejecting this.

If the Government do not accept such a reasonable request, is it not going to trigger off the kind of speculation that will not do anybody any good? Is it not going to raise questions we do not need, thus undermining the whole basis of the democratic process and the integrity of people in elected office? The Government have a clear duty in this regard. In their response they must say clearly why the Labour Party amendment is not accepted by them.

The Minister for the Environment may stand up and say there are major difficulties, that the central difficulty in relation to implementation in a statutory form of the national building regulations is not the quality of their contents but the manner in which they will be administered. The Minister may say there are two options. He may say we can gear the public service sector with a whole array of new employees, linked to public service pay requirements and with a corresponding impact on staffing levels in his Department and throughout the local authorities but that there has not been any financial provision to take such costs into account this year, next year or in the foreseeable future. The situation in Britain indicates that they are having second thoughts about a bureaucratically administered system of national building regulations and our Department, aware of these difficulties and having regard to the contraints in the economy, may be having second thoughts about the way the regulations might be implemented.

If the Minister said that we could reply and tell him that we appreciate the difficulties, that we realise there is no magic wand solution, but we would tell him that that does not remove the obligation to protect life in buildings, particularly in buildings of public resort and entertainment. Echoing what Deputy Browne said, the Minister could say that there is another model to the implementation and administration of national building regulations and that is the one to which the Construction Industry Federation referred in their submission, namely some degree of self-certification. The effect of that would be that people who design and construct buildings and who subsequently are found to be negligent with regard to clearly specified regulations would be held to be criminally negligent and, in the context of a tragedy like this, would now be in jail pending the outcome of an inquiry, as Deputy Browne mentioned in relation to the French case.

These are the choices open to the Minister. Why has the Minister not put them honestly on the table? Why has he not pointed out the difficulties to the House? Why has he not told the House that we have to respond to the tragedy and why has he not sought the best way forward to ensure that a similar tragedy will not occur again? I do not know why he has not adopted that course. There is no party advantage in any of this. There are endless topics about which we could disagree but on this matter there should be no disagreement. The tragedy and the shame is that there is.

In relation to the matter of building regulations. I should like to clarify one point that was repeated here today. I have been quoted as saying that the Construction Industry Federation objected to and delayed the implementation of the regulations. What they objected to were the insulation standards of 1976-77 but it would be unfair to accuse them of delaying implementation of the regulations.

On behalf of the Labour Party I ask the Taoiseach or whichever Minister will reply to tell us why he thinks the public inquiry should not, as a term of reference, have regard to how the draft building regulations were implemented. The Minister and the local authority have requested that they be implemented on a voluntary basis. Why should not such a specific inquiry be made? We are talking about a building for which outline planning permission was obtained on appeal in 1976. I am speaking from memory and am subject to correction. The revised final full approval was obtained in 1978-79 and, therefore, it would fall within the scope of the request to regard these draft building regulations as a voluntary code of practice.

That is our argument. All the rest will come later. In the context of this tragedy and of the terms of reference of the tribunal the Government have a clear duty to indicate to the House why they will not accept this essential amendment.

Dr. FitzGerald

I had not intended to speak, but I should like to point out two things. I have listened with care to Deputy Quinn and I now understand what I had not understood before, the rationable of his amendment. The question of whether the voluntary application of the draft building regulations did happen in the case of the Stardust Club is a matter material to the inquiry. It does not seem to me to be necessarily covered by the other terms of reference, and now that I understand the purport of it——

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 18 Feb 1981

Artane (Dublin) Fire: Tribunal of Inquiry.

Tá

Níl

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 18 Feb 1981