Louth Senator says families with missing loved ones deserve better

Louth based Senator John McGahon has highlighted a number of measures that he says need to be addressed to aid the plight of families who have missing loved ones, and says that an improved database “is essential” to allow for the identification of human remains.

Senator McGahon organised a meeting with Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, and with families of missing people, including a family whose brother lay unidentified for 11 years.

The Dundalk Senator organised the meeting with Minister Helen McEntee and Minister James Browne, as a result of meeting Claire Keane and Freida Halpenny from Ardee, whose sister Priscilla Clarke went missing in Wicklow in 1988.

The families included Michael and Bernie Jacob, whose daughter Deirdre went missing in 1998; Laura and Julie Crawford, whose brother John went missing in 2000, but his remains were only discovered in an unmarked grave 11 years later; Aidan McMeel, whose brother John went missing in the USA in 1997; and David Byrne, brother of missing Dublin man, Gerard Byrne.

During the meeting the Minister was informed that in addition to the 44 cases of unidentified persons notified to the Department of Justice by coroners, families are aware of several other cases which are not included by coroners.

Senator John McGahon said: “Families of missing people who have long campaigned for more information say that an independent audit of unidentified bodies is the only way to get a true national picture.

"An improved database is essential if we are to identify more remains. It needs to include more information, personal items and more clues as to who the person might be.”

The Fine Gael senator continued: “Families must be kept appraised by gardai of ongoing efforts to find a loved one, at present some families have not heard anything in years. When families give DNA samples, they hear nothing back, they want to know what websites it is on and what organisations are collaborating in the search nationally and globally.”

During the meeting, Claire Keane said, “at present some are forgotten because coroners’ records are not complete, this is unacceptable.”

She called on the Department of Justice “to contact county councils and parishes responsible for cemeteries, to search records to find graves of unidentified persons, and also receipts for payments of funerals expenses.”

Both Minister McEntee and Browne agreed to act on a number of the recommendations put forward by the families and Senator McGahon in the meeting, and would meet again in six months’ time to update Senator McGahon and the families.