Families of Creeslough victims are demanding a public inquiry, almost two years on from the tragic explosion that claimed the lives of ten people.
Ten people were killed in the blast that ripped through the Applegreen service station and apartment complex at the centre of the town – five-year-old Shauna Flanagan Garwe and her dad Robert Garwe, 50, Catherine O’Donnell, 39, and her son James Monaghan, 13, Leona Harper, 14, Jessica Gallagher, 24, James O’Flaherty, 48, Martin McGill, 49, Martina Martin, 49 and Hugh Kelly, 59.
Their calls for an inquiry come as Garda Commissioner Drew Harris confirmed earlier this week that an investigation file is almost ready to be submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Regardless of the criminal charges that may end up being filed pending the DPP’s analysis of the case, families are demanding that a public inquiry also be held so they can finally find out all of the facts about that fateful day on the 7th of October, 2022.
Four people, including two tradesmen, have been arrested by Gardaí investigating the explosion. Those arrests happened in March and May and all four were later released without charge.
It remains up to the DPP to decide whether any criminal liability is present in the case.
However establishing what happened, and why, is crucial to the families – not only in understanding how such an awful event could happen, but also how it could be avoided happening again in the future.
Earlier this week, 20 of the victims’ family members gathered to call on the Government to establish this formal inquiry, as they have been left out of the loop with the Garda inquiries.
One of those family members has told media that she doesn’t want a wait like that suffered by the families of the victims of the Stardust tragedy.
Ann Marie Boyle, whose sister Catherine O’Donnell and nephew James Monaghan died in the explosion, told RTE that “There are no answers. Nobody is giving us answers. We understand the Stardust families had to wait years and years later before they got the proper answers.”
“We don’t want it to be years and years later to get answers about how our ten family members died.”
Donna Harper, the mother of 14-year-old Leona who also died in the explosion, told RTE of her appeal to the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee to meet with victims’ families.
“We just want to talk to the minister and tell her what we want and need. We just want her to listen to our stories. We’re all united now because we all want answers.”
“I will sit here today, and I will ask, please, Helen McEntee, give us that meeting as a family. Give us the meeting that we deserve.”
Read the story in full here.
