Rose Conway-Walsh urges help to recover three missing remains

I suppose from my own point of view in listening and listening to when Columba McVeigh was killed in 1975, I was a young child growing up in Mayo and I just find it just the pain and the distress that I heard when we went to the WAVE Centre and I do want to thank Sandra for hosting us at the WAVE Centre. I thought that was a very valuable discussion just to hear first hand from yourselves and I want to commend you and the work that you have done over the years. I think this is a good opportunity, albeit a painful opportunity for all of you to reach out again, to ask once more. All the mechanisms are in place to resolve the situation around the three remains that have not yet been recovered. I think we must do everything we can and I think every single individual at this meeting today will do that from here on in. And I know great efforts have been made so far over the years as well. But again, I want to appeal to anybody who has information, however significant that might be, to bring it forward to the Commission. And I think hearing from yourself, Anne, in terms of the relief and what it brought to you in terms of meeting with the members and members of the INLA and the people directly who could give you that information, I think should really prompt anyone today who would deny that to another family, to one of the three families who are waiting, I think would really have to question. They would really have to question themselves. You're not asking for anybody to be prosecuted, you're not asking for anything else but for the remains of your loved ones. We all know how important funerals are. I was at two family funerals last weekend, myself in London and Birmingham. And to have to wait 15 years to bury your loved ones is not right. And again, I would appeal and I think everybody will come off this meeting today with a renewed focus on what we can all do. What we can all do, whether it be from Mayo or from Cork or whatever part of the country, what we can all do to try and bring some kind of relief to yourselves, to the three families who are still left waiting. And I really hear what you said, Maria, in terms of your sister being 86 years of age. Time is not on our side in this. So that's all. I just want to give you an opportunity to come back. But I really do thank you for being here today. Thank you all for being here today, for giving your contributions. We can never understand what meetings like today help us to maybe understand a little bit better than we do. Thank you very much. Thank you. I just said, I know that Oliver wishes to ask a question there. Oliver, if you want to come in now, please. Sorry, Chairman. You're very welcome, Oliver. You're very welcome to speak. I just listened to Orla and I'm aware that she's Sinn Féin and I know I'm fairly confident that her age group wasn't involved in any of the troubles. But I would just urge her that she goes to her two leaders in the north and the south and to bring this to the highest. Let them bring it to the top table and take the lead on this. I mean, it's OK talking for people to come forward and talking in this meeting about people, urging people to come with information. We need this to come from the top. We need this to come from Mary Lou and Michelle O'Neill. And I urge you, Orla, to go back and do that. You know, talk is cheap and I'm sure you have it at heart. Please go forward and let them do the talking and let them bring it to the lead that we can all get this cleared up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Does any other witness wish to make any comment or to answer any of the questions which Orla and Rose may have asked there? You're very welcome to make a contribution, if you wish. I know that Orla had raised a number of questions in relation just to the overall process around the legacy proposals go forward in relation to reconciliation. And I think there's a number of things. One, there's a very detrimental impact for families. And we're seeing that, Orla, today in relation to rising referrals of the bereaved coming into wave, people who've never tapped into services before, who are coming forward for the first time, who are distraught. And particularly those whose loved ones were killed between 1986 and the Good Friday Agreement of those cases who were never looked at by head. I mean, some people were happy with the historic inquiry team, other people were unhappy, and other people were left with questions arising from the process. But I think that those whose loved ones' deaths have never been re-looked at between 1986, which is whenever the historic inquiry team ended its work, and the Good Friday Agreement, that's the group that I see that are particularly struggling through the processes currently. I think there are three other points in relation to this. One, we're handing it to the next generation. I used to deal with the parents. I used to deal with Vera McVeigh, if you want even to think of the families that disappeared. It's now Dipna and Oliver who are taking this forward. A lot of the parents in wave sadly have died. We've buried five people in the last two weeks alone. Patsy McAteer, aunt's sister, was buried two weeks ago. And a month ago, Michael's older brother Archie McConville died. Now, that is indicative of what we're seeing. We're seeing a lot of people, a lot of families who are losing their loved ones, and it's the next generation who are taking it on. And we're merely handling the trauma of the past to the next generation. But we're handling it without an understanding of what the context was like at that time. Because people who lived at that time know how manic it was, know what the systems were at that time. Where young people are looking at that devoid of that. They're looking at it solely on the facts. And that is an entirely different relationship. And I think that I can see that in relation to the transgenerational link. It's fair to say we're still paramilitaries operating. We're still seeing families affected by paramilitaries, whether it's on the loyalist side or in the Republican side. And quite simply, this will embolden paramilitaries to say we will get away with this. We will not be held to account. I think it's a very damaging message for our society moving forward. Nobody wants that for their children here. They want to move forward in a process of peace. And they do not want in terms of to be held back. And I think the recent report yesterday of paramilitaries shows the problems of that when we look at the independent reporting mechanism. So I think there's a very clear issue about emboldening paramilitaries. And I think the third thing is it undermines the Good Friday Agreement. We have to remember that families voted in favour of this, many of them. And I think that fundamentally it undermines the basis of that in relation to if now we're saying to families, once again, we're removing this off the table, you're taking away the small glimmer of hope that families had. We do not have wholesale families here expecting prosecutions, but we do expect them to know that the rule of law stands and that there should be a proper Article 2 compliant investigation into their deaths. Thank you.