Senator John McGahon - speech from 18 Oct 2023

Thank you very much, Cairlock. Leader, just to move on to another equally serious issue, but one is about missing people in Ireland, and as many people in this House will know, I'm organising a meeting with the families of missing people today in the AV room at 1 o'clock, and if many people could come along, I'd really appreciate it. And as of July of this year, the Department of Justice has said that there's 840 missing people in Ireland. There's also 44 people who are buried in graveyards around Ireland today that are totally unidentified. And the reason I'm having this meeting today is on behalf of Claire Keane from County Lowth, and Claire's sister Priscilla Clark went missing in May in 1988 while horse riding in the River Dargal in Enniskerry and has never been found. And the families of missing people who are coming here today have a number of kiosks of us as politicians. One of them is a comprehensive database like in the UK. We do have a database here, but it's not as comprehensive enough as it could be in terms of ensuring what a missing person was wearing that day, what jewellery they're wearing, what's the colour of their hair, for example. It's not the same level of comprehensiveness that the UK has. They have a number of other kiosks as well, which I hope that we can get a lot of cross-party agreement on and that we'll be able to bring to the Minister for Justice and indeed Minister of State, James Brown. But the key thing at all of this, Leader, is that this is everybody's worst nightmare to have a family member just disappear. Some died in circumstances like Priscilla, where she was trying to cross a flooded river and was unfortunately washed away. Other people died through murder. And the people who committed those acts have not been brought to justice. So I really think that it's a part of our society in terms of missing people that's somewhat kind of forgotten about. I accept that we have a Missing Persons Day every year and that's really welcomed. But I perhaps appreciate a debate at some stage in the future, Leader, about some of the kiosks that these families will have today. And I would really encourage everyone to be able to come along to the AV room at 1 o'clock. Thank you very much.