A former doorman at the Stardust nightclub in north Dublin, in which 48 young people died in 1981, said he was not “used by other people” to cover-up the locking of emergency exits on the night.
Michael Kavanagh was in the witness box at Dublin coroner’s court for a third day on Thursday where fresh inquests are being held into the deaths of the 48 people, aged between 16 and 27, in the ballroom fire in the early hours of February 14th, 1981.
He faced robust questioning as to why he changed his account in the immediate aftermath of the blaze about whether the six emergency exits had been open or locked.
The inquests have heard Mr Kavanagh, who was a 20-year-old junior doorman at the time, told friends the O’Tooles, at about 3am on February 14th, all exit doors had been locked. After visiting a number of hospitals looking for his girlfriend, Paula Byrne (19) who died in the fire, he returned to the Stardust site at about 4.30am.
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At about 5am he was approached by journalists. He told them the exits were all open. He went on to repeat this “lie” to friends at a GAA club on Sunday 15th and in a Garda statement, made on the 16th.
Also on the 16th he gave an interview to RTÉ’s current affairs programme, Today Tonight, in which he said: “I arrived into the Stardust itself at about 9 o’clock and I went into the office, into the Silver Swan, to get the keys of the Stardust and I went around about twenty past nine and I opened up each and every one of them.”
Bernard Condon SC for families of 10 of the dead, asked Mr Kavanagh: “What happened in that intervening period” between telling the O’Tooles the doors were locked and his 5am interview with journalists, “to cause that” change in story.
“I have no idea. I don’t know,” said Mr Kavanagh.
“It might be you are not happy with it. It might be unattractive. It might be embarrassing. So be it ... But surely to god people are entitled to know what changed between 4 o’clock and 5 o’clock that you are pronouncing you opened them.”
He reiterated that he didn’t know.
Mr Condon said the “truly extraordinary thing.. that cries out from highest heaven for explanation is why in name of God did you go on RTÉ and repeat the lie to the entire country. What was going on?”
“I have no idea.”
Mr Condon put it to him that when back at the Stardust site at about 4.30am he had been in conversation with bar manager Brian Peel, head doorman Tom Kennan and manager Eamon Butterly, before talking to journalists.
“It would seem to me ... that if you were in their company just after this fire it defies logic you wouldn’t have been asking each other: ‘What in the name of God happened?’…Is it possible one of them said to you, ‘Weren’t you supposed to be opening the doors?’ Did you sheepishly go along with that?”
“I don’t remember ... I don’t remember seeing them.”
Pressing him, Mr Condon said: “It calls for some explanation.”
“What do you want me to say?” asked Mr Kavanagh. “I am telling you what I remember of the night. I did not see and I did not have a conversation with the people you mentioned.”
Mr Condon said series of events raised the question whether he was “an innocent abroad” or was there a “full out conspiracy” that he should lie “to advance the interests” of the Stardust management.
“There was no conspiracy on my part. I don’t know how many times I can say it. I just don’t know .. It’s the only answer I have.”
Mr Condon asked was he used by other people. He said he did not know.
“You were advancing a very helpful public statement. You were the PR they dreamt they could have ... You were their dream .. Were you put up to it?”
“No,” said Mr Kavanagh.
The inquests later heard Mr Kavanagh told the 1981 tribunal of inquiry into the disaster he had met the three men at the Stardust site at about 5am, but did not have a conversation with them.
