A woman who lost her sister and nephew in the Creeslough explosion has said she will never enter a shop if it is built on the site of the tragedy.
Ann Marie Boyle was speaking after Donegal County Council granted permission for a new service station on the same site as the one on which 10 people lost their lives in October 2022.
Ms Boyle lost her sister Catherine O’Donnell and nephew James Monaghan in the blast.
“I simply would never be able to go there again knowing that Catherine and James died there. My family feels the same way,” she said.
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“And I know that many, many other families and people from Creeslough feel the exact same way.
“The only way we could have honoured the 10 people who died on that day was to build a memorial garden where we could all go and honour their memories. Instead, they want to put up 10 steel poles. Whoever came up with this idea?” she added.
Ms Boyle confirmed all families who lost loved ones received registered letters from the county council on Thursday morning telling them of the decision to grant permission for the new service station.
However, she felt the council should have met the families “face to face” to tell them of the decision before the general public knew.
Planning permission for the site was granted to Vivo Shell Limited with 10 conditions attached. A notice to that effect was published on the Donegal County Council website overnight.
Most of the conditions attached relate to traffic safety, prevention of flooding and sustainable development.
But Ms Boyle said the owners of the Vivo Shell franchise, the Lafferty family, should have tried everything in their power to relocate the new service station to an alternative site.
The Lafferty family say they exhausted all avenues trying to find a suitable site to replace the temporary shop which is housed on parish land at the other end of the village.
Ms Boyle said she did not accept there are no alternative sites in the area.
Christine Evans was working in the deli at the Creeslough service when the building exploded on the afternoon of Friday, October 7th, 2022. She managed to escape out of the back of the building with just a shoulder injury.
As well as being caught up in the trauma of the tragedy, Ms Evans lived in a rented apartment above the garage.
She said she simply will not be able to continue in the village if the service station is rebuilt on the same site.
“I find it bad enough having to pass there and I get anxious if I am away and know I have to pass it when I return,” she said.
Since the explosion, she said, “I take it a day at a time.”
She too received a registered letter from Donegal County Council telling her of the decision to grant permission for the new service station. “But I already knew the permission was granted from the night before when I read it in the local newspaper. Who told them, and what way is that to treat people whose lives have been destroyed by this tragedy?” she said.
Phoenix Law, acting for a number of the families, has confirmed its intention to challenge this decision with An Bord Pleanála.
[ ‘We need answers’: Creeslough families meet Ministers to push for public inquiryOpens in new window ]
In the Dáil on Thursday, Minister for Education Helen McEntee, who was minister for justice at the time of the explosion, insisted the Government had not ruled out a public inquiry into what happened.
She was responding to Sinn Féin’s Pearse Doherty, who said families have been “retraumatised with this decision” to allow the redevelopment of the site.
Ms McEntee acknowledged the “absolute devastation” caused by the explosion. She met the families and said the Garda investigation into what happened is continuing so a file can be sent to the DPP.
“But if at the end of that process – and the DPP is independent – there are still questions that need to be answered the Government has never, nor should it ever, rule out a public inquiry,” she said.
Those who died in the explosion were Robert Garwe and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan-Garwe; Catherine O’Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan; fashion student Jessica Gallagher; Celtic fan Martin McGill; Sydney native James O’Flaherty; shop worker Martina Martin; carpenter Hugh “Hughie” Kelly; and 14-year-old Leona Harper.
