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THE MOTHER OF a 14-year-old girl killed in the 2022 Creeslough explosion has said she is “looking for a strong commitment” from the Taoiseach on a public inquiry into the tragedy when they meet this afternoon.

On 7 October 2022, 10 people were killed in an explosion at a building complex in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal.

Those who died 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.

Leona Harper had travelled to Creeslough to have a sleepover in a friend’s house.

Today’s meeting will be the first time the victim’s families have met with the Taoiseach, with the meeting due to take place at 3pm in Government Buildings.

Leona’s mother, Donna Harper, said the families are “looking for a strong commitment from the Taoiseach” on a public inquiry.

There is an ongoing criminal investigation into the explosion and speaking in the Dáil last month, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that “the viability of having (in) parallel a criminal investigation and the public inquiry at the one time” would be “extremely problematic and challenging”.

Speaking to RTÉ ahead of this afternoon’s meeting, Ms Harper said: “We have some very serious questions that do need to be answered, and the only way we’re going to get them answered is through a public inquiry.”

The victim’s families have meet with the current and former justice minister, Jim O’Callaghan and Helen McEntee respectively, and while Ms Harper noted that neither committed to a public inquiry, she added: “They didn’t rule it out either.”

“They were saying that they just wanted to wait for the garda criminal investigation to be over,” said Ms Harper.

“But it was stated at the time by Drew Harris, then-Garda Commissioner, that it can and has been done in this country before.

“So we will be asking the Taoiseach to give us a commitment to establishing the public inquiry.”

She added that the families have had “no answers of any kind” in the nearly four years since the explosion.

“We’re not going to get them answers through a garda criminal investigation.

“The only way we’re going to get some of these questions answered is through a public inquiry.

“This is one of the biggest civilian disasters in the history of the state, I don’t understand why the governments are not establishing it.”

Meanwhile, Donna said she and her family “are still living in 7 October 2022”.

“While Leona was going into the shop, I had just rung her and asked her what she was doing just to make sure she got over safely.

“She told me she was going into the shop, and the last words I had said to my daughter were, ‘Love you, ring you tonight’, and her last words to me were ‘love you too, mammy’.”

Ms Harper said that when she got a call to make her way to Creeslough, she had “no idea that the shop had exploded, I didn’t know what I was going down to”.

“I stood there across from the shop for almost 24 hours until Leona was located.

“She was the very last out, but no parent should ever have to hear the words that your daughter’s gone, because she went into a shop and never came home.”

Ms Harper said she “lives with this everyday” and that there have been “no answers whatsoever”.

“How do you begin to even put a foot forward, to have any kind of a closure, when there’s nothing.”

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