Families of those who died in the Creeslough explosion in October 2022 have welcomed signs of progress and commitments made during a meeting with Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters outside Government Buildings after the meeting, Donna Harper, whose daughter Leona (14) died in the explosion, said Martin had given the families a “very good hearing”.There had been “a bit of progress made here today”, she said. Ten people were killed in the October 2022 incident in Co Donegal. It is widely suspected a gas leak caused the explosion at an Applegreen filling station.On Wednesday, solicitor Damien Tansey, representing the families who met the Taoiseach, said Martin had given a commitment that if various criminal and regulatory inquiries do not provide answers then he would consider the establishment of a statutory inquiry “that will produce those answers”.Tansey said that if those inquiries do not produce the answers sought by the families “then we will remount our campaign with a view to the establishment of an inquiry, like for example what happened in Grenfell, like for example what happened in relation to the Stardust inquiry.”Harper said the Taoiseach “really did listen to us”.Hugh and Donna Harper of the Creeslough families with their solicitor Damien Tansey (right) arriving at Government Buildings to meet the Taoiseach on Wednesday. Photograph: Collins “He did state that we do need to get the truth, the families need the truth, Ireland needs the truth of what happened that day. It was a very good meeting, a very good outcome,” she said, adding that it was a better than in previous meetings with Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan.“We never got any kind of a commitment of any kind from anybody else and we did get that today from the Taoiseach,” she said. “He was very sympathetic as well but we weren’t here for sympathy today, we were here for some kind of commitment. It’s not a full commitment, but it’s some kind of a commitment and I do believe that there was a bit of progress made here today.”Tansey said the Taoiseach had indicated that the Director of Public Prosecutions would decide on what to do with a file it received from gardaí by the end of August. The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities are also involved. “The concern was that if an inquiry was established to run parallel with that inquiry, that damage could be done to the criminal process and that can’t happen, that’s accepted by all of the injured parties,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Taoiseach said he had an “open and constructive discussion with the families of those who lost their lives in the Creeslough explosion in 2022.”“He listened to the personal testimonies of the families and articulated his deepest sympathies for their loss and the trauma that they have suffered.”She said Martin understood the “need for justice and for answers” and reiterated the importance of allowing the investigation to reach a conclusion. A HSA report is due to be concluded.