Mr Justice Charles Meenan rejected Mr Butterley’s claim that the inquest could find no evidence of unlawful killing. However, the judge said, this can only be done in “appropriate circumstances” and only when no person is or cannot be identified. Mr Butterley had tried to prevent Dublin City Coroner Myra Cullinane from conducting the inquest in a way he believed would make him “a target for a verdict of unlawful killing”. The Coroner, the Minister for Justice and the Attorney General opposed the application, while the families of the deceased, the Garda Commissioner and Dublin City Council were notice parties. Forty-eight young people died and 128 were injured in the fire at the Artane nightclub in the early hours of February 14, 1981. It was one of the worst fire deaths in the state’s history. Mr Butterley, whose family owned the nightclub, was managing the venue when the fire broke out. There have been a number of inquiries over the years, including a government-appointed tribunal which found “the most likely explanation for the fire is that it was deliberately caused”. Inquiries in 1982 recorded deaths according to medical records. The families of the dead have long campaigned for the court’s ruling to be overturned and for new inquests to be held. In 2008, then-senior counsel Paul Coffey was appointed to review the case for a new inquest and found that the finding in 1982 that the fire was started deliberately was not objectively justified by the evidence. A further review, based on new evidence, by a retired judge in 2017 found that no further investigation was warranted. Then, after further campaigning by the families, the Attorney General ordered a new investigation. On Wednesday, Judge Charles Meenan dismissed Mr Butterly’s application saying he was satisfied with Ms Cullinene’s decision last February that a verdict of unlawful killing could not be ruled out at this stage, it was legal. Ms Cullinane’s reasons for doing so included that she could give appropriate instructions to the jury and that it would be open to legal teams from all interested parties to make the necessary submissions on the instructions that should be given. [ ‘Stardust took me over. It turned me into a victim too’ ] [ Christine Keegan obituary: Courageous and tireless Stardust campaigner ] Mr Justice Meenan said an inquest is an inquest hearing to establish the facts about the who, how, when, where and circumstances of a person’s death. It is not an exercise of scrutiny or accountability or exoneration, he said. Coroner laws prohibit hearing or investigating matters of civil or criminal liability, as well as verdicts convicting or acquitting a person, he said. Those limitations, however, do not prevent an inquest from establishing the facts surrounding the circumstances of a person’s death, even though those facts may ultimately be relevant in another forum dealing with criminal or civil liability, he said. Parties before an inquest have a right to due process, but that right is limited given the statutory boundaries within which the inquest is conducted, he said. Sections 30 and 31 of the Coroner’s Acts do not bar verdicts of wrongful death, he said. Issues of civil or criminal liability or verdicts containing censure or acquittal arise when the person(s) concerned are identified or can be identified. “In appropriate circumstances, there can be a verdict of unlawful killing, but only when no person is or cannot be identified,” he said. The law also gives the coroner the discretion to look into the circumstances of a person’s death. It may be that the more detailed the evidence is about the circumstances of death “the less admissible a verdict of unlawful killing will be,” he said. “It is for the coroner, having heard all the evidence, who has given the evidence and considered the submissions of the parties, to direct the jury as to the verdicts permitted.” Mr Butterly had also sought a declaration from the court that his rights had been breached by the failure to provide free legal aid at inquests in cases where the coroner could have returned a verdict of unlawful killing. In a separate ruling on this issue, Justice Meenan dismissed the application. The judge said that although Mr Butterly was entitled to fair proceedings during the questioning, those proceedings were not of the order that arise in an adversarial proceeding. Mr. Butterly is not a party to and is not defending himself against allegations as might happen in civil or criminal hearings, he said.
