The fire broke out at the Stardust nightclub in Dublin on St Valentine's night in 1981

Stardust payment scheme seeks potential applicants in UK

27 Apr 2026, 15:21 by Conor Hunt, https://www.facebook.com/rtenews/ · RTE.ie

The Department of Justice has said it has been liaising with the Irish Embassy in London, to assist in highlighting its Stardust payment scheme, in an effort to reach potential applicants who may now reside in the UK.

An awareness campaign here is also to commence this week.

The scheme, open to survivors of the 1981 fire at the Stardust nightclub in Dublin on St Valentine's night in 1981 which killed 48 people, was established last February.

It will see successful applicants receive €20,000 for "delays in providing truth and justice".

It is available to all survivors who received payments from the original 1985 Stardust Victims Compensation Tribunal.

The department has said a total of 823 people received compensation from that tribunal, meaning the potential maximum cost of this financial package is €16.4 million.

Officials have said there has been a "positive response", with 425 applications received so far.

However, some survivors have been critical of the package when it was announced, saying it was done without consultation.

They also said that a flat rate of payment, rather than a sliding scale, amounted to a broken promise.

Notices of the scheme will be published in newspapers, and posters are to be distributed in areas around the old Artane site, in communities in Dublin 5, 9, and 13.

The closing date is 17 August.