Jason Gamble, 20 years in the bar trade, knows pubs. I'm not a builder's son or a farmer's son who always had money. I've worked my way up, " he says.

Last Christmas, Gamble was approached by one of Dublin's pub auctioneers to see if he wanted to take a lease on another pub. That's the way it is now, " he says. He didn't know what had happened so near the pub: ?I had no idea. I have to be honest. It was two weeks after, when I was visiting my mother, and she said 'I wonder is that where. . .'" And that is how Jason Gamble stepped into the maelstrom of fury and recrimination that has reignited around the Stardust fire, which killed 48 local young people on 14 February 1981. In the echoing bar of the new Silver Swan, half a dozen men sit peacefully drinking a lunchtime pint. At night, the Stardust relatives have a picket on the place.

The thing is that there was a pub here before, " says Gamble. ?And no-one objected. Skelly's bar. And a snooker hall."

The snooker hall, Crazy Joe's, and Skelly's bar are now amalgamated into a huge pub, which is called the Silver Swan. There was a bar called the Silver Swan at another location on the site of the old Stardust complex, and it was gutted in the 1981 fire. To the relatives, this name . . . combined with what they say was the intention to open the new Silver Swan on last Valentine's Day, the 25th anniversary of the tragedy . . . was too much. It brought them right back to Eamon Butterly, manager of the Stardust on the night of the fire, and still one of the site's owners.

There was no intention of opening on 14 February, " Gamble insists. ?In fact, we were meant to open at Christmas, and if we had I would have closed on Valentine's Day as a mark of respect. I'm employing 11 people here, all local people, all from Artane. The relatives have my phone number. I'm ready to sit down and talk with them at any time."

We don't want to talk to Jason Gamble, " say Antoinette and Lorraine Keegan and their mother Christine, who is chairperson of the Stardust Victims' Committee. ?It's not about him. What has he to offer us? We want a new inquiry." Antoinette and Lorraine's sisters, Mary and Martina Keegan, died in the fire. Their late father, John, famously hit Eamon Butterly with a chain.

When asked why the relatives had never objected to Skelly's bar or to Crazy Joe's snooker hall . . . which were situated in exactly the same location as the new Silver Swan and also owned by the Butterly family . . . the Keegans say that the licence for Skelly's was in the name of the man then leasing it, John Ramsbottom, from 1991. In September last year, Eamon Butterly became the licence-holder. The relatives do not want him to have a licence for a place of entertainment. The tribunal [which investigated the fire] said that Eamon Butterly showed reckless disregard for the safety of the people on the premises, " says Antoinette Keegan.

Jason Gamble's licence for the Silver Swan is interim. He says this is because pub licences are granted only once a year, in September, and that, as his lease runs for five years, he will apply for the full licence when he is permitted to, next September. In the pub leasing business, he says, such arrangements are ?absolutely routine."

The Butterlys are the principals . . .they are the people, " says Jimmy Dunne, whose son, Liam, died in the fire. ?Jason Gamble's hands are tied. We have new evidence now which we are going to put before the Taoiseach. If they had changed the name and planned to open it on a different day, I think it would have cruised through. I think they were cocking a snook at the relatives."

The relatives say that, in recent years, they have gathered new evidence on the location and cause of the fire. A woman has come forward whose job when she was a teenager, she claims, was to lock the exits from the Stardust.

Other than this, the relatives will not say what new evidence they have. ?Why should we?" asks Jimmy Dunne.

The new evidence will go to the Taoiseach and if he will not open a new inquiry, then the relatives will go to Europe. Meanwhile, they will picket the Silver Swan every night. Jason Gamble nonetheless says that business at the bar is building.

My son was the last to die, " says Jimmy Dunne. I stayed in the hospital until 11 March. But that's not boiling my blood. I'm a level person, I see both sides. If I disagree with the committee, then I say so. We'll stop the picket when one of the Butterlys decides to meet us. We want to progress. We must have some elasticity. I'm very optimistic about this."