The truth around the fatal fire at the Stardust nightclub has finally been revealed after being obstructed by successive governments, according to Sinn Féin Leader Mary Lou McDonald.
She was speaking in the Dáil after Taoiseach Simon Harris delivered a State apology to the families of the victims of the fire.
48 people were killed when the blaze ripped through the nightclub in Artane in 1981. Last week, verdicts of unlawful killing were returned at inquests into their deaths.
Ms McDonald said that "at each and every turn the State abused its power to bully, intimidate, pressure and coerce heartbroken mothers, grieving fathers and devastated families".
"The State placed so little or no value on the lives of 48 working class young people whose lives were snuffed out," she said, and "that's the cold, hard truth".
"This travesty happened on the watch of successive governments", but the families of the victims and survivors refused to give up, she said.
"You don't mess with Dublin mas. You don't mess with Dublin das," Ms McDonald added.
"Justice was kept out of reach for those left to bear unimaginable loss," Ms McDonald said this afternoon.
"And you, their families, brought the truth home for them. And now, let justice flow like a river," she concluded to applause.
Earlier, Ms McDonald had said that the "big lie" that the fire was caused by arson became the "State's official position".
In 1982 the Keane Tribunal into the disaster found that the fire was "probably caused deliberately". That finding was removed from the record in 2009 and the Stardust inquests heard how there was absolutely no evidence of arson.
'Dark cloud hung over the community'
Meanwhile, Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Bay North Denise Mitchell has said she remembered seeing the panic in her own father's eyes when he was told about the fire and realised that some of his own nieces and nephews could have been at the nightclub.
"A dark cloud hung over our community, a dark cloud that hung for far too long," she said.
She said the trauma is still felt to this day - both the trauma caused by the tragedy and by the way survivors and families were treated.
Ms Mitchell said the were treated as if they did not matter, "but they did matter and they do matter."
'Someone else's nightmare'
Labour Leader Ivana Bacik welcomed the full and unreserved State apology offered by the Taoiseach.
She echoed the words of others, including former RTÉ journalist Charlie Bird, who asked if the victims were from another part of Dublin would the tragedy have been treated differently.
Ms Bacik said she wanted to pay particular tribute to Betty Bissett, whose 18-year-old daughter Carol died in the nightclub.
She quoted her words about finding herself "in someone else's nightmare" and how she was not allowed to visit her daughter in hospital where she died three days after the blaze.
"We hear you, we believe you, and we are profoundly sorry"
She commended all the families on their fortitude and their resilience.
Ms Bacik said she hoped today would give them some solace and comfort, despite being four decades too late.
Active steps had been taken to evade accountability, noting the flawed and deeply wrong conclusion of arson by the Keane report, she said.
She noted that the 2009 Coffey report, which rejected that finding of arson, was edited to remove a line accepting that a new inquiry was necessary if it was the only way of "placing on the public record a finding that is based in evidence." A Freedom of Information request brought that to light.
She also offered her own heartfelt apology: "We hear you, we believe you, and we are profoundly sorry not only for the tragic deaths of your loved ones but also for your subsequent battle for truth which lasted four decades and should never have been so difficult."
She said in the coming days "we must see fresh engagement on new issues of redress and investigation."
Her party colleague Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, who also represents the Dublin Bay North constituency, said "it is an insult to the very concept of a republic that anyone should live a second class life, or die a second class death, but it is an undeniable truth."
"We must reflect on that darkness," he said, "that thinks the worst of those who need us to hear the truth".
He also said that the gardaí and DPP must do what is right in the wake of the inquests.
'Rare victory' for Stardust families
Social Democrats Leader Holly Cairns said the tragedy is seared into the national psyche, and she welcomed the rapid response from the Government this week.
"It makes a refreshing change to see the State doing the right thing when it comes to its treatment of Stardust families," she said.
"Last week's verdicts represented a rare victory in the Stardust families' decades-long campaign for justice."
But there is now "justifiable public anger" that it took so long to see justice, she added.
"No campaign group in Ireland's history have had to protest as much, or for as long" as the Stardust families in order to achieve justice, Ms Cairns said.
"The suggestion of arson heaped pain upon pain, and cast unfounded suspicion on every person who attended the Stardust disco that fateful night," she said.
Families were forced to live with this smear for decades, she added.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said a "political system and successive governments that have failed you, have been forced finally to give you some degree of the the vindication and acknowledgement that you have so long deserved."
He acknowledged that some of those who had fought over the years were not here to see today's apology, and said he wanted to remind people of the "impact over generations that this tragedy, this great injustice, has had."
He quoted from an email he received from Mark Frazer, whose sister Thelma died in the fire: "Both of my parents died in their mid-50s, within ten years of the fire, from the stress and strain of dealing with the aftermath of the fire."
Mr Boyd Barrett said he hoped today was "the beginning of the truth... not the end, an apology is not enough, there has to be true justice and accountability."
