The inquests into the deaths of 48 young people in the Stardust fire has heard how the head doorman said he thought the club's fire-exit door procedures "worked well" on the night of the fire.
Tom Kennan made the comments at the 1981 Keane Tribunal into the disaster and which were read into the record today at the Dublin District Coroner’s Court.
He was asked at the tribunal: "You are not able to assist the Tribunal, with what went wrong leading to 48 deaths?"
He replied, "A lot of people got out, it worked very well."
He was asked, "Your system of chaining doors and opening doors, that worked well… you have no criticism of that?"
"I have not really, no," he replied. "…It was a case of pushing the bars and the doors would open, as far as I could see."
The inquests, before Dr Myra Cullinane, have already heard that six days after the fire Mr Kennan told gardaí that he had unlocked the emergency exits at around midnight on the night in question.
He made the garda statement one day after another doorman, Michael Kavanagh, retracted his original statement that he had opened them.
He was asked at the Keane Tribunal why he had not told gardaí he had opened the exits in his first statement to them on the 14 February.
"You told us it was a sigh of relief that the doors were opened and you knew you had opened the doors?", he was asked.
"Yes," he replied.
He was then asked, "Why didn’t you tell police that?"
Mr Kennan replied: "I don’t know, it didn’t occur to me …"
He also told the Tribunal that it was "immediately after the fire" that he told the owner Eamon Butterly that he had opened the exits.
"I said ‘Thank God all the exits are opened’," he said.
The inquests also heard today from Kenneth Fagan.
He worked as a doorman at the club for a total of 3 nights in January of 1981, a month before the deadly blaze.
The court was read a statement he gave gardaí in March of 1981 in which he said three fire exits, were always "locked with chains".
In court today he said a colleague at the time, who was also a fireman, had remarked that it was "dangerous".
Asked by legal teams for the families of the victims if he had ever received any fire training during his time working at the club, he said, "none whatsoever".
