Stardust apology 'void of moral authority' if State does not address Whiddy Island disaster 

A letter sent to Taoiseach Simon Harris in recent days by maritime lawyer Michael Kingston, is seeking fresh inquests into the deaths.

Mr Kingston is vice president of the French-Irish Association of Relatives and Friends of the Betelgeuse, the group which represents the families of those who died. His 31-year-old father Tim was among the victims.

“For some time, fresh inquests have been requested by the families of the Whiddy Island Disaster victims who died in atrocious circumstances on January 8, 1979. Your predecessor, or An Tánaiste when he was Taoiseach, failed to meet the families following repeated requests. As we have seen with the Stardust families, we are simply ignored, time and again.

“I understand that you will make an apology in Dáil Éireann to the families of the Stardust tragedy, for the despicable manner in which they have been treated by this State that is clear for all to see. That State apology to the Stardust families will be void of any iota of moral authority, in circumstances where the State cannot engage in any meaningful way with the families of the Whiddy Island Disaster, or other families who are enduring eternal torture following loss in the Irish State where it is obvious that it has not been investigated properly at a victim’s inquest.”

Mr Kingston said not only is it urgent that the Whiddy Island Inquests are re-convened to establish the truth about how 50 people died, “but the public interest in fixing the cavalier approach to our State’s maritime safety regulation that caused their death is urgent, for the protection of everyone that uses the sea”.

“Despite the urgency of our families’ need to find the truth, after 45 years of daily torment, wherein so many people, as experienced by Stardust families, have died in terrible grief with no closure, your colleagues could and cannot see or feel that obvious urgency, and cannot even meet to discuss it,” he told the Taoiseach in the letter.

“The Stardust families epitomise that true spirit of Ireland and Irish leadership. And the families of those who died in the Whiddy Island Disaster, are equally steadfast in their pursuit of justice, and are not going away.”

The dead included 42 French crew, one Briton, and seven Irish men — Tim Kingston, Charlie Brennan, Denis O’Leary, Neilly O’Shea, Jimmy O’Sullivan, Liam Shanahan, and David Warner. Some 23 of the bodies were never recovered.

Mr Kingston said two bodies that were recovered remain unidentified in a grave in Bantry, with “the State never employing modern techniques to identify them and give solace to two French families”.

Mr Kingston, who was four years old when his father died, has been campaigning for fresh inquests into the 50 deaths for several years, after inspecting the original inquest files and finding them to be unreliable. He wrote to then taoiseach Leo Varadkar over a year ago citing concerns that the recorded causes of death for the victims did not reference the circumstances surrounding the fatal incident, including regulatory failures.

During a tribunal of inquiry, it was found that the Betelgeuse tanker was in poor condition at the time of the Whiddy disaster, with evidence of corrosion and leaking found on the vessel. It also found that Gulf Oil and its employees had “suppressed the truth” about the events that occurred on the night of the disaster.