Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The second part of today's meeting is a discussion with Ms Caroline Dwyer, mother of the late Michael, who was tragically killed in Bolivia in 2009 by Bolivian security forces. She is accompanied by Ms Catherine Heaney, who has been working on this campaign with the Dwyer family. They are both very welcome today. I am aware they have been campaigning to have an international-led investigation into the circumstances of the killing. The purpose of today's presentation is to inform members of this committee of the latest developments in the family's campaign and to assess what assistance we, as a committee, can lend to that campaign. As the witnesses are aware, we will hear their opening statement before having some questions and answers.

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

I thank the Chairman for the introduction. I thank members for giving me the opportunity to make this presentation today. I am accompanied by Ms Catherine Heaney, as the Chairman mentioned, who has supported me in navigating the advocacy infrastructures we have engaged in with this case.

I would like to start by reminding the members about my son. Michael came into the lives of myself and my husband on 15 June 1984. He was the eldest of our four children and was brought up in a small, close-knit community in Ballinderry, north Tipperary.

Before he left for Bolivia in 2008, Michael graduated with an honours degree in construction management and took up a short-term contract in site security. That job ended. At the time, Ireland was in a deep recession and there were no jobs in construction for a young graduate. He left Ireland to undertake a security course in Bolivia. I helped him organise his travel. There was no hidden agenda. He used his own passport during his travels and kept in contact with me. He told me about his girlfriend, a Brazilian medical student. He sent me copies of his curriculum vitae, CV, so that I could help him obtain a job here in Ireland.

Michael was a loving son, a caring brother and a great friend. He loved life. He was full of fun, and he loved to socialise. Our home has been quiet for almost eight years. The laughter he brought has been silenced in our house. I knew my son. He had no ulterior motives. We are not a political family, and Michael was not political. He would have had no interest in or knowledge of Bolivian politics, and he did not speak Spanish.

Michael was killed by the Bolivian special police force, UTARC, at the Hotel Las Americas on 16April 2009 in an operation that President Morales claimed immediately afterwards through the media he had ordered. The initial evidence supplied to the Irish Government by the Bolivian authorities did not stack up. That was the opinion of the Irish Government, which immediately called for an independent international investigation.

The Bolivian authorities claimed in flagrante delictoas the justification for not complying with the normal criteria for a raid on a private building in the early hours of the morning. To support this claim, Bolivian officials stated that there was a street chase from the centre of Santa Cruz to the Hotel Las Americas and that there was a 30 minute shoot-out in which Michael was killed.

When Michael’s body was repatriated to Ireland, it was examined by the State pathologist, Dr. Marie Cassidy. She also examined the photographic and other information that was made available by the Bolivian authorities. Her analysis concluded that Michael could not have been engaged in a shoot-out. The bullet when straight through his heart and damaged his lung. When he lay dead or dying, he was shot four more times in the back. He was in bed wearing nothing but his underwear. There is no doubt that Michael was summarily executed.

The Irish Government, the European Union, through the offices of the European External Action Service, EEAS, and our family have every confidence in the report presented by Dr. Cassidy. That is why we are united in our call for an independent, international and transparent investigation into the killing of Michael.

I would like to put on record that I have hugely valued the support of successive Irish Governments, in particular that of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Charlie Flanagan, the former Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin, the former Tánaiste, Eamon Gilmore, Deputy Alan Kelly, who is present, the European External Action Service and the European Parliament, especially the former Irish delegation of MEPs who have not given up in their questioning and support for Michael’s case.

Since the day of Michael’s death, my family’s objective has been to establish the truth. Large elements of the media – in Ireland and internationally – sullied his name. The information and the photographs released by the Bolivian authorities were not questioned.

In the immediate aftermath of the executions of Michael and two others in the Hotel Las Americas, and in which two more were arrested, the Bolivian authorities used this event to arrest 37 local businessmen and opposition figures in Santa Cruz. Almost eight years later, the trial of those men continues in the kangaroo court of Santa Cruz. While four of them opted for an abbreviated process in 2015 and took a plea bargain for lesser charges in return for a sentence of time already spent in prison, that plea was essentially a plea for freedom. The ongoing trial is the excuse that we are given for the Bolivian authorities not commencing the investigating into the execution of Michael.

Michael is not part of that trial. He does not get an opportunity to defend himself. It is absolutely unjust that my family cannot get the truth put on record in Bolivia and have those responsible held accountable for Michael’s execution.

Over the past eight years, we travelled over and back to the European Parliament to mobilise support for our call for an international investigation into Michael’s killing. We travelled to Geneva to submit our case to the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions who, on review, deemed that there was sufficient evidence to conclude that this was an extra-judicial killing and subsequently issued letters of allegation to the Bolivian authorities, the highest level of complaint from the office of the UN.

In 2012, we submitted a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights specifically on the violation of Article 4, the right to life. In recent months, Michael’s case entered into the first of three phases en routeto the inter-American court.

In June 2014, we learned that Marcelo Soza, the chief prosecutor in the trial of the 37 accused in Santa Cruz, had fled from Bolivia to Brazil as he had failed to deliver the sentencing of the accused and was now under persecution himself. We travelled to Brazil to interview him. He provided a witness statement to us confirming that there was no legal basis or authorisation for the police raid on the Hotel Las Americas, that as the first official present to gather evidence at the scene he found Michael was unarmed, that there was no evidence of a shoot-out and that, during the five years of his investigations, he found no evidence implicating Michael in any unlawful activity in his time in Bolivia.

Later in 2014, Catherine Heaney, my eldest daughter Aisling, who is here with me, and I travelled to Bolivia to see how we could further piece together Michael’s case. That visit was also a deeply personal one. We visited the room in which Michael’s dead body had lain. I felt that the person who killed him was just centimeters away, both in my mind and physically, when Michael was killed. The room was so small, there was no room for a shoot-out. We saw the city in which he spent the last days of his young life. It was an upsetting time for us, but it was important for us to make that connection.

During that visit we met with the hotel manager who was the first witness to see the lifeless bloodied bodies lying in the bedrooms. His evidence is crucial. There were no guns lying near those who were dead, and no evidence of any crossfire. All the bullet damage came from one direction - the police. He recounted how the heavily armed police had threatened the night porter at gun point, demanded that the hotel front doors were unlocked, disconnected the CCTV cameras and, having confirmed the room numbers of their targets, quietly made their way to the fourth floor of the hotel. There was an explosion followed by short bursts of gunfire, and it was all over. Three people lay dead in their bedrooms. Later, we heard from another witness, a guest at the hotel, who said that after hearing the explosion they heard pleas for life, shots and then silence.

Also during this visit in 2014, supported by the offices of the EU and the Irish Government, we travelled to La Paz and met with representatives of the Bolivian Government. Our objective was to present to them our family’s complaint about the ex-judicial execution of our son and to personally call upon them to accept our request for an independent, international investigation. As recently as last night, the response from the Bolivian Government was sent to us. It was its response to the Inter-American Commission. One point it made in that response was that the family had not made a complaint about Michael's killing. It is a point we might discuss after the presentation but I only got this information last night. That type of response is what we have faced over the past eight years. We went to Bolivia twice to make an official complaint and yet in a letter to the Inter-American Commission, they said they never received any complaint.

During our engagement, the representatives of the Bolivian Government expressed their condolences to us on the loss of our son. In response to our call for an independent, international investigation, they indicated that other processes could only be considered once the ongoing trial in Santa Cruz was complete. In terms of an update on that trial, they are eight years into it. They are on witness 28 of 42, and they reckon the trial will take at least another three years. That same position was reiterated in November 2015 when my family met with the delegation of President Evo Morales during his visit to Ireland. At that meeting, we expressed our concern that evidence and recall relating to Michael’s killing is fading away, and that at least one of the key individuals involved in the raid on the hotel in Santa Cruz is now deceased. They offered my family a commitment that if we were to revisit Bolivia, we would be facilitated in meeting key Bolivian officials who were involved at the time of Michael’s killing.

After months of communications with the Bolivian authorities and an agreement to provide us with access to interview most of the list of 19 witnesses we identified, we made the long journey back to La Paz in July 2016. Hours after our arrival in La Paz, we were informed that the interviews with those key individuals were cancelled. After overnight interventions by the Irish Government, we were met by Bolivian deputy officials who eventually produced two individuals for us to interview. However, those individuals were apparently suffering a severe episode of amnesia and the response to each of my questions was frustratingly the same. They could not remember a thing of their evidence gathering of the current most high profile case ever to happen in Bolivia. Our journey was wasted, Bolivian promises broken, and the diplomatic process that I have so heavily invested in was severely fractured.

My recent encounters confirmed to me that I will struggle to ever get justice for Michael in Bolivia. We have assembled evidential documentation over the past eight years and keep a close eye on developments in Bolivia. We have submitted a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and while we received an initial commitment that our case would be fast-tracked through the system, it now appears stuck. Sometimes, it feels that we are running out of road in terms of clearing Michael’s name.

I ask members of this committee to consider ways of assisting to deliver some justice to my dear son, Michael. At a very basic level, I urge members to consider the reports and information we have gathered and for them to make their own assessment of Michael’s case. A report of this committee would be hugely important in supporting the concerns that the Irish and European Governments - in addition to my family - have been highlighting. Based on this work, I would be pleased if members could consider submitting an amicus curiae or letter to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights pointing out their observations and concerns.

I do not intend to hold back on my work in calling the Bolivian authorities to account for their actions. I call on the committee to consider any potential to visit Bolivia to examine the circumstances of Michael’s killing. Alternatively, in any personal visit by me, I would very much appreciate the potential of having a representative from this committee to join me as an observer. An immediate action from that could be an observer's report to this committee which could subsequently be used in my international advocacy. I want witness testimony on the facts surrounding Michael's killing put on official record at least in Ireland before it is too late.

Nothing can bring Michael back to us but we will not give up in our search for the true facts and justice. Michael was the victim of an extrajudicial killing. The manner of his killing was a flagrant abuse of the UN Convention on Human Rights, and in particular Article 4 on the right to life. His killing is a human rights issue. It is a loss that myself and my family find so difficult to cope with to this day. My son was an innocent victim. Ultimately, I want those responsible for executing Michael to be held accountable. I thank members for their time. I am happy to take any questions.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Caroline Dwyer for her very comprehensive report on the awful murder of her innocent son. She delivered her very comprehensive report, which must have been exceptionally difficult for her, in a very composed manner. When I had the opportunity to meet with her and Ms Heaney last summer, I mentioned that we would afford them the opportunity to come before the committee at a time that suited them to ensure that the committee, along with all Members of the Oireachtas, would do everything we could to try to assist and ensure that the truth would be discovered. The committee met with Mr. Pat Bourne, head of consular services in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. We told him at the time that we would be meeting with Ms Dwyer and Ms Heaney and that we would afford them the opportunity to make a presentation to the committee. We will be very pleased to follow up the proposals they put to the committee and to support them. We want the basic truth to be found and for the Bolivian authorities to co-operate. I propose to the committee that we will again meet with senior officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and make sure we are not at cross purposes in terms of the Department's own work but that we will work in conjunction with it. The witnesses will have the full support of the committee in whatever way we can to support them in getting to the truth. I invite members to comment or ask questions.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome Ms Dwyer and Ms Heaney to the committee and I extend my deepest sympathies on them on the death of Michael. I also commend Ms Dwyer and her family and Ms Heaney on the tireless work they have carried out on behalf of Michael.

My knowledge of the case is limited. It seems to me that Ms Dwyer's son was summarily executed and we must carry out some actions on behalf of the Dwyer family. I am very sympathetic to the proposals that have been put forward. We must examine them as a committee and see how we can act on the recommendations. When will Ms Dwyer hear from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights whether the case is admissible?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

We submitted our case and the commission lodged it with the Bolivian authorities, which was supposed to have 90 days to respond but it sought an extension, which brought it up to August. We received the response last night. As I mentioned, the commission has indicated that we have not made an official complaint but the process from here is that we have 30 days to make a counter-response and then the commission will make a decision on admissibility. We believe from our work with the commission that we should get through this process. The commission struggles itself with resources and funding. We were given a commitment by the head of the commission that we would be prioritised but because of the lack of resources it could take another six months before we get to admissibility.

Ms Catherine Heaney:

It is worth pointing out that the former director of the commission visited Ireland about a year ago. He came specifically to tell us about the importance of this case in a global human rights context. He said it is one of the most important cases that is being taken at the moment in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In terms of adding weight to our complaint, while the committee cannot become a joint complainant the commission would welcome letters of support for individual cases that are before it.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Does the submission have to be in Spanish and are supports provided in order to do that?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

We have 30 days in which to compile a response and get it translated. First, I must get the document we received translated. It is a tight timeframe to turn it around in 30 days. Spanish translation is an issue.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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Is Ms Dwyer satisfied with the support she has received from the Department?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

I have been offered every support from the Department and Mr. Bourne is with us today as well. He has offered us every assistance in trying to get help in order to turn around a response within 30 days.

Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
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What was the official reason given by Bolivian Government officials and technical experts when they said Ms Dwyer would not meet with the witnesses on their visit to Bolivia?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

They used the excuse of the ongoing trial, which was already taking place. The fact is that they invited us there and committed to provide the witnesses to us. Ms Heaney and I, and my daughter Aisling, travelled to London in April of last year. We set out who we wanted to meet. Communications went backwards and forwards and as late as two weeks before we travelled it was confirmed that we would meet those people. It was horrendous to hear three hours after we arrived that the meetings were cancelled. I was distraught.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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I apologise that I missed the presentation but we did meet the previous time the witnesses were here. I read the transcript of Ms Dwyer's presentation as I received it last night. I admire and acknowledge her persistence. She has never given up on getting justice for her son over all these years. She and her family have been doing incredible work. It must have been most frustrating to meet with the officials and be told the meetings with the witnesses were cancelled. Is there any possibility of the meetings being rescheduled?

Deputy Seán Crowe asked about the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Ms Dwyer also mentioned meeting the UN special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings. Has she any hope that this might lead to justice or a way to progress the case? I also wonder about other regional bodies in Latin America. Bolivia has good relationships with a number of other Latin American countries, such as Cuba. Some of us engage with the Cuban Embassy and ambassador. I wonder if we could do something through his good offices. Something similar worked in another part of the world for me another time. Where can Ms Dwyer bring the evidence she received from the chief prosecutor when she met him? Can she make any progress on it?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

Our understanding for our visit to Geneva is that the UN special rapporteur has written at least three letters of allegation based on submissions and amendments to those submissions we made. That is the highest level of complaint the UN can make. The UN does not carry out investigations. It examines the evidence, makes a conclusion and writes the letter of allegation. That is as far as the process goes. That is why we moved into the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights scenario.

Ms Catherine Heaney:

We reached out to former Deputy Eamon Gilmore, who had been appointed special ambassador to Colombia regarding the referendum it had last year. Through this, we became aware that Bolivia had been campaigning heavily to get onto the UN Security Council and used the Colombian peace process as one of the things it could bring to the table. We tried to exploit this contact. Unfortunately, the referendum was lost and the connection fell apart. We are happy and willing to consider other infrastructure.

Ms Dwyer made the point about the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the court. It faces the problems of defunding and a low level of commitment and compliance in South America. Often there are cases in which the court proposes fines and countries never pay them. It happens a lot in the human rights context. There is also a major fear with the change of administration in the US, which is the biggest funder of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, that it could be further eroded. It is the strongest instrument across the Americas. This is why we have invested so much.

We sought advice and examined every infrastructure option. Many of them are weak. There is a dual context. It is very important that the truth be found, for the sake of human rights. One cannot just kill somebody for nothing. The other purpose is to clear Mr. Dwyer's name. Once somebody's name is damaged, it is very difficult to rebuild it. It takes years, whereas the damage can happen in just a day.

Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael)
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Apologies for being late. I am desperately sorry for Ms Dwyer's loss. It was very moving and she is amazing to be able to do this and fight for him. I offer my condolences to Ms Dwyer and her family. Deputy Seán Crowe asked the question I had in mind about the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Did Ms Dwyer make any kind of formal complaint? I presume she did. Was it not in the correct format and was that why the Bolivian Government said she had not?

They say Mr. Dwyer was involved in a 30-minute shoot out. However, his body was found in the hotel and, as Ms Dwyer said, in his underwear. Are they suggesting he was running through the streets for 30 minutes in his underwear and then he was shot, and how can they back it up?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

That was the first information that came to us via the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The statement said there was a chase through the streets of Santa Cruz, back to the hotel where a 30 minute gun battle ensued. This clearly was not the case. I have explained how the police raided the hotel in the middle of the night.

Although we had made complaints a number of times ourselves and through the Irish Government, the Bolivian Government said publicly that it had never received a complaint. When we went to Bolivia in 2014, our main objective was to hand a formal complaint to the Bolivian Government and we made them stamp it in order to show it had been received. We have a stamp on our submission that says it received it. In July 2016, we went back and reiterated the complaint. It is completely incredible that it would turn around in its response and say it had not received a formal complaint.

Gabrielle McFadden (Fine Gael)
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It is pure obstruction.

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

The Irish Government was with us in 2014 and 2016, as was the European Union representative in Bolivia at the time, Mr. Timothy Torlot.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I thank the Chairman for inviting me to speak. I have been following the case for eight years along with Ms Caroline Dwyer and Ms Heaney. They are very welcome today, along with Ms Aisling Dwyer. The Dwyer family live in Ballinderry, County Tipperary. They are an incredible family and very well thought of. They need the committee's support. I have no questions, given that I have been involved for so long. I will make some comments and some suggestions to the committee on the issue.

From the way Ms Dwyer has put forward her evidence, we can see there is no closure for the Dwyer family. We need to help them to get some form of closure, whatever percentage that can be. For Ms Dwyer and her family there can never be full closure. They have lost their son. Michael Dwyer was executed, murdered by a foreign government. I have seen the evidence and videos. He was picked out and executed by a government. This Parliament needs to support the family in getting as much of this evidence as possible out there, highlighting it as much as possible and getting as much closure as possible.

Ms Dwyer has outlined the journey she has been on regarding the support here, the European Commission and the UN. However, the simple fact is that the Bolivian Government will not allow the evidence to come out. We saw it as recently as last night. They said the family could meet the witnesses when they travelled. All of a sudden, the witnesses disappeared and the ones they met were no use, given that they were being programmed. Last night, the family received a letter saying there had never been an official complaint. They have handed in written, signed complaints. The Bolivian Government is deliberately obstructing the process given that it knows it executed an Irish man. It picked him out and executed him. I believe he was summarily executed after the fact. I think it is the family's belief also. The evidence points to it. I have seen all the evidence.

This stinks from the very top, from the President of Bolivia. The prosecutor in the case had to seek refuge in Brazil. The evidence he has given is incredible, as is the evidence of Elod Toaso, who said Mr. Dwyer had been alive and had been brought back and executed. Nearly eight years ago, an Irish citizen was taken out by the Bolivian Government and executed, and, by God, we are going to have to do something about it and support the family.

I am convinced on this. I have followed this for many years. I have done whatever I can to support the family, and I know that all parties and all institutions have done so as well. Within the next 30 days, Caroline and her family, and Ms Catherine Heaney, who has done so much work pro bono to help the Dwyer family over the last number of years and who deserves our thanks, will have to send back a submission to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. They will need all the support they can get, and the Department will supply that.

I am asking this committee to send a delegation to Bolivia. This is an extraordinary situation. We have done this in the recent past, and rightly so. It does not have to be as large a delegation as that which went to Egypt but we need to show the Bolivian Government that we are not going to tolerate the blatant execution of an Irish citizen. We are going to highlight it to embarrass it, if it is not going to co-operate.

There is also an issue in regard to getting evidence on the record. We need a platform to put out all the evidence we are aware of. We need a medium to do that and any help or suggestions the committee would have in regard to doing that are welcome. We need a forum to do that before more time passes.

A declaration from this committee on its view in regard to what happened to Michael would also be helpful. Closure comes in many different ways. Initially, the way in which this family was treated by some aspects of the media in this country was nothing short of a disgrace. There is still an element of that out there. A declaration from this committee would be very supportive. This young man was executed. He was in Bolivia, he was working and he was executed for no reason.

Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent)
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Can I ask if there has been any engagement with the group he was working for in Bolivia? Is it of any support to the family in trying to get to the truth? If, as Deputy Kelly was saying, there appears to be no hope of justice in Bolivia, where does one turn to for justice?

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

In terms of contact with the others, obviously two of them were killed. Over the last few years I have had contact with the other two who made the plea bargain for their freedom and who are now released. They are also part of the petition.

Ms Catherine Heaney:

On the question of what is next, Deputy Martin, who was Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, called for an international, independent inquiry from day one. To get that at a UN level, what we would require is the co-operation of the Bolivian authorities. In many ways we keep getting stuck. If the case clears from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights then that court hearing will be vital as a forum. It is not a paper court, like the European Court of Human Rights. It is an actual physical court, where there is testimony and witness statements. In terms of documenting what happened that is going to be a really important forum. We are confident that will happen, although much more slowly than we had originally anticipated.

To go back to some earlier questions, such as the possibility of the meetings that we were promised last year being rescheduled, we have low confidence in the system, but perhaps if the question was posed by a different forum it would be possible. A few years ago former MEP, Mr. Gay Mitchell, was on the European Parliament's Committee on Development, the sub-committee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. A huge amount of Bolivia's aid actually comes through Europe. It is a Spanish speaking country and there are strong connections with the Spanish Government. Mr. Mitchell went carried out reconnaissance before the new round of development aid was agreed for Bolivia and he made it his business to meet quite a number of politicians and asked hard questions and he became very engaged in the case. I think that there is still more political advocacy to be done.

On the evidence of the prosecutor, Marcelo Soza, we travelled to Brazil and all this travel has been funded by ourselves. We travelled for two days to Brasilia, arriving in the early hours of Saturday and leaving on the Monday. We met Mr. Soza and recorded all his testimony, so we have that on record, on tape. I also took extensive notes at the meeting. He also shared the hard drives of his computer with us, so we downloaded those and brought it back. That showed evidence that he claimed had been tampered with, evidence that had been created post-event and placed. He gave us a huge amount of information, and he also wrote a letter and signed it to say that he would be happy for this to be presented to any forum of the Irish Government, the European Parliament or indeed any other international body. That is available.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Ms Dwyer or Ms Heaney, is there anything you wish to add?

Ms Catherine Heaney:

We want to acknowledge the input and support of Deputy Kelly. It is a very close community and he was able to ascertain the impact that this had, particularly on the family. He followed the matter closely. Concerning the issue around the media coverage, we did not talk about post-truth or alternative facts then but there were lots of them, and I think that has been hugely damaging to Michael's reputation. I have often said that it is hard to kill a dead man. He really had been defamed, and was not available to contest that. I think that is an important point to have on the record, and I thank Deputy Kelly.

Ms Caroline Dwyer:

I thank Deputy Kelly for all the support he has given us through the years, and for bringing us to Europe and other places.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to reassure you that you have the full support of our committee. The purpose of suggesting that you make a presentation to the committee was so that we could put on the record our absolute support. We will follow up on the suggestions proposed and the actions that you would like to see us take. I am very glad that the head of consular division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Mr. Pat Bourne, is here today with colleagues from his division. We have met Mr. Bourne in the past and discussed this issue, and we know he has taken a very keen and ongoing interest in supporting you. What I suggest to our committee is that we will agree to meet with Mr. Bourne and his officials next week and follow up on the actions that you have requested. We will liaise with the Department to ensure that we are all working in parallel and working together, and will take on board the suggestions that have been made by members.

I do not know off hand which European Commissioner has responsibility for human rights but we might engage directly with that Commissioner as a committee. Can I just assure you that we will do everything we can as a committee to support you in your endeavours to get to the truth. You have made an excellent presentation to us today. It must have been an extremely difficult presentation to make, and it was done extremely well. The Department has said to us that you have been trying so hard without seeking media coverage to try to unearth the truth, and it is deplorable, as Deputy Kelly said, that in the past we have had media commentary that was beneath contempt at times. Hopefully, our work and our endorsement of your seeking the truth will redress some of that.

We will run any correspondence we send to an agency or political representative past the witnesses first to ensure good dialogue. We will also include the Department. Please be assured the witnesses have the full support of the committee in whatever way we can help. I offer them sincere thanks for the presentation. I am glad that Ms Dwyer's daughter, Aisling, could be here today as well.