Families of missing people to demand changes to how cases are handled
A garda at an area around Grangecon in Co Wicklow as part of an investiogation into the disappearance of Jo Jo Dullard. Picture: Collins
Families of Ireland's long term missing people will meet the Garda Commissioner on Thursday to demand changes to how cases are being handled.
The meeting at Garda Headquarters with Commissioner Drew Harris comes as a garda search was continuing on Wednesday as part of a probe into the murder of missing woman Jo Jo Dullard. The meeting was scheduled prior to Monday's arrest in that case, and also prior to the exhumation in Bandon last week of the unidentified remains of a man found in the river at the Lee Fields in Cork city in 1999.
One of those meeting Commissioner Harris on Thursday, Claire Clarke Keane, says the group has a number of issues to raise with him. Her sister Priscilla went missing while horseriding with her employer, Lynda Kavanagh, in Wicklow in 1988. Ms Kavanagh’s body was recovered from the River Dargle two days later but Ms Clarke has never been found.
Ms Clarke Keane said that among the requests the families have are that:
- Crimecall would regularly feature the case of one of Ireland’s unidentified remains in cemeteries or morgues across the country
- Inquests be opened for all unidentified remains
- Information be made available on how many profiles of Irish missing and unidentified remains have been added to the Interpol files and other international databases
- An independent commission be established specifically to obtain information, in confidence, which may lead to the recovery of remains of long term missing people
- Regular liaison between gardaí and families of Irish people missing abroad and collaboration with international police forces investigating disappearances of Irish people
She said the families want An Garda Síochana to include statistics relating to missing persons in the organisation’s annual report, including how many have been found in each 12-month period, how many exhumations have taken place, and the outcome of them.
She added that the families also want follow up from gardaí after DNA is taken from people hoping that it will help to locate their missing loved ones.
“We assume Forensic Science Ireland has it but we don’t know where it has been sent — we assume it is sent to Interpol for example. We give our DNA but we don’t have an idea where it is,” she said.
Also among those who will meet Commissioner Harris tomorrow are Michael and Bernie Jacob, and Laura Crawford.
The Jacobs’s 18-year-old daughter Deirdre disappeared in July 1998, in Newbridge, Co Kildare. Her case was upgraded to a murder probe in August 2018.
Ms Crawford’s brother, John’s body was discovered on a beach in Cumbria in the north-west of England in 2000, some months after he disappeared from his home in Tallaght.
His body was finally identified in 2011 after DNA taken from the belongings of Mr Crawford was circulated by gardaí to other police forces. He had been buried in a cemetery in the UK.
