Closing submissions at the inquests into the 48 people who died in the 1981 Stardust fire have concluded with legal teams for the families of the victims once again urging the jury to return verdicts of unlawful killing.
The proceedings will resume next week when coroner Dr Myra Cullinane is due to summarise the evidence for the jury before they deliberate on a verdict.
The inquests, which began last April, have sat for 111 days and heard direct evidence from 190 witnesses.
Today, interested parties finished making closing statements to the jury.
It heard how the nightclub was turned into a "prison" in which people could not get out of on the night of the deadly blaze.
Counsel Bernard Condon, representing families of those who died, said the victims "who never came home" were real people with hopes and dreams.
He said the question to be asked is why did they die. He told the jury that there had been a whole lot of circumstances that aligned on the night, some worse than others.
He pointed to the lack of fire training for staff, the carpet tiles on the walls and the locking and obstruction of the emergency exits.
He said these contributory factors fit into the category of unlawful killing.
Mr Condon also said when it came to the condition of the emergency doors on the night, the credibility of doormen "is shot to bits".
He said the only fixed piece of evidence was that the exit doors were locked at the start of the night and said there had been no compelling evidence that they had been unlocked.
He said no fire drills were ever held for staff, they had not been trained in how to use fire extinguishers and none were told what to do in the event of a fire.
Mr Condon said an "awful tragedy" was that there was a fire extinguisher in the west alcove, the area where the fire was first seen inside the club and said there was a photo showing that it was still there after the fire.
He said it was a "challenging photo" when one thinks of the "what ifs".
He said the consequence of the lack of fire training for staff, was "delay" and that "delay equals death". "That's a fact,’" he said.
Mr Condon told the jury that the disco on the night was meant to be for over 21 but that 83% of the patrons were under that age.
He also said the people who died were "hard-working, decent people" who went out a night out.
He asked why did so many die and asked "what in the name of God" was going on to lead to the accumulation of circumstances which turned the club into a "prison" that people could not get out of.
Earlier, barrister Brenda Campbell, said the means of escape in the club were adequate but were rendered "redundant" by the circumstances of the fire.
She also pointed to earlier evidence from pathologists who said the longer a person is exposed to conditions like the one in the Stardust that night, the greater the damage.
She said time is absolutely crucial and any slowing down is going to cause greater problems for the individual and lead to a greater risk of death.
Ms Campbell said that stains, rumours, lies and mistakes have haunted the families of the victims for decades, some of which took effect even before the "embers of the fire went out".
She told the jury that we were now "almost there in the Stardust story" and that it was over to them to write the last chapter.
She said it was not about blame, but recording the truth about how "these young people died".
She said if the jury finds that the rapid spread of the blaze was because of the carpet tiles on the walls and that the lack of an evacuation plan and the obstruction of emergency exits caused delays to escape and that these "failings" were causative to the deaths that followed, then the conclusion must be that the 48 who died in the Stardust fire, were unlawfully killed.
Ms Campbell also told the jury that complaints had been raised by Dublin Corporation inspectors and members of the public about locked or obstructed doors for two years before the fire but that no enforcement action was taken.
She said the "closest we get to an enforcement action" was a letter sent by the corporation to the Stardust two weeks before the fire.
In reply, manager Eamon Butterly said he gave "assurances" that the exits would be kept clear.
She asked: "What value…were Mr Butterly’s assurances after that very sorry history".
Ms Campbell said locking of exits was pointed out to be wrong "yet it continued and was permitted to continue".
"Was that good enough?" she asked.
Counsel for Dublin Corporation, now Dublin City Council, Patricia Dillon, said the planning permission which was granted to convert the factory into the Stardust venue was subject to a number of conditions, including that the walls be plastered.
In her closing submission, she told the jury that they had heard evidence that replacing plaster with carpet tiles was an alteration that required approval and that no such application was made.
She said she wanted to emphasise that the process applied to everybody and there were no special rules to bypass that.
She also said that Mr Butterly, in his evidence, agreed that the obligation to comply with planning permission rests on the applicant.
She said on the night of the fire, the only planning permission in operation related to the original which required plastered walls.
Patricia Dillon also told the jury that there were verdicts, other than "unlawful killing" open to them and said a "narrative verdict" was one they may come to view as one to consider.
She said such a verdict is usually available where the issues are "extremely complex".
Earlier, Barrister Sean Guerin reminded the jury of evidence from a fire expert who said there was no evidence of arson in the west alcove.
He said that has to be the 'beginning and the end of it’ as far as the question of arson is concerned. He said to say otherwise is "no more than speculation, not inquiry, which is incapable of doing justice" to the victims and their families.
He said it was "supported by the evidence" that the fire started in the hotpress and was observed by witnesses outside before it was very shortly then seen inside the club in the west alcove.
Mr Guerin said there were three "very specific" issues with the electrical installation of the immersion heater.
He invited the jury to return a verdict of unlawful killing.
He said it has taken a ‘very long’ time to get to this point but said justice delayed may yet not be justice denied and said ‘justice may yet be done.’
Séamus Ó Tuathail, SC, who is representing the family of 17-year-old Marie Kennedy who was one of the 48 victims, urged the jury to return a verdict of unlawful killing.
In his closing statement, he said that Marie Kennedy would not have died had exit 5 "opened without delay".
He also said she would not have died if by-laws had been observed in relation to fire exits and fire training.
Mr Ó Tuathail also said it was the contention that she would not have died had there not been carpet tiles on the wall "which caused the fire to spread at a rate that made the inside of the Stardust incompatible with life within 90 seconds".
He said it was clear that Marie’s death was "the result of unlawful action and the failure to abide by the law".
At the conclusion of his closing statement, he said it was noticeable that the average size of the households affected by the deadly fire was around six or seven and said that testified to the "vast reservoir of grief" that persists to this day.
