The ‘number one objective’ is that Creeslough families get answers to the questions that they have asked and that they were entitled to.
The Minister for Education Helen McEntee was responding in the Dáil earlier to Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty who said that those affected by the tragedy have been retraumatised by news of the redevelopment of the site, and the manner in which it was communicated.
Donegal County Council granted planning permission today to Vivo Shell Limited to redevelop a service station at the site where ten people tragically lost their lives in an explosion in Creeslough more than two years ago.
The explosion at the service station and apartment complex on 7 October 2022 claimed the lives of four men, three women and three children, aged between five and 59.
Those who died were Robert Garwe and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan-Garwe; Catherine O’Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan; Jessica Gallagher; Martin McGill; James O’Flaherty; Martina Martin; Hugh ‘Hughie’ Kelly; and 14-year-old Leona Harper.
Deputy Doherty said he was thinking of “Margaret O’Donnell, she’s a mother of Catherine, she’s the grandmother of James”.
“She went to a grave at the weekend without the answers that she and all of the other families deserve.”
Ms McEntee said she met with the families when she was minister for justice “because I wanted to hear from them, because I wanted to meet them, because I wanted to make sure that they got the answers that they are entitled to and that they deserve”.
“I was very clear in my previous role, as was government, that an inquiry was never being ruled out.”
She commended the work of the gardaí “to make sure that a file can be prepared and it will be sent to the DPP”.
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