Ms Sandra Peake:

There was a search for Joe Lynskey in Wilkinstown. Ms Lynskey said it was 2008 before there was any confirmation. In 1999 when the list of the disappeared was released it was not complete. There were others who were not on it. Peter Wilson and Joe Lynskey were added later in 2008. One of the difficulties is that there may be people in the area who know something but do not know that it is significant. I say that because there were four cases in that area. There were Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee in Wilkinstown, Brendan Megraw was in Oristown and then there is Joe Lynskey. There has been a search for him in Wilkinstown and a limited search for him in Oristown. The search in Wilkinstown produced Seamus and Kevin which was good.

The parish priest reached out to the families and that was the first time. One of the things was trying to take it back into the heart of the community. People were very reluctant. They said there was a great shame in the area because this had happened in their locality. They had farmed and tended to those bogs and cut peat in them and there was an embarrassment that this had happened and those bodies had been buried in their midst.

They did not know how to reach out. The first thing for the families was to acknowledge that there was nothing to be embarrassed about. It was not their fault that the bodies had been taken to that area. There was something about the fact that they could actually provide help. We had a blessing of Oristown bog before one of the searches for Brendan Megraw. That search did not produce anything. The family of Philomena and Kevin McKee went round with the priest. Bishop Smith was very good to us at the time. He has since retired. He had empathy for the disappeared because he had lost a relative on 11 September 2001, so he knew the difficulties of when people did not come home and could not be buried. He had empathy with the families. He went and blessed Wilkinstown.

I said it to the other families when we were leaving. We had a warm welcome in Oristown. People came out to the bogland when there was the blessing there. That was a major occurrence for the families because they had never met the families and the families had never met them. They talked about the shame. On the way home, I asked if they wanted to see where Philomena McKee was. We went to Wilkinstown. Local people stopped and talked about some of what had been witnessed. Somebody had been coming along the road. They had heard something and described what it was. Looking back, when Kevin and Seamus were found, there was truth within that. A man had died but he had told another neighbour, who had passed it on. There is information in communities that they may not realise is significant. If the Deputy could do anything to bring it back into the heart of the community, that would help us.

At the end of the day, those bogs were chosen by somebody who knew the bogs. They had to know the landscape to know the best place to hide a body. The information may well lie within the community in some cases. I am not saying that everybody from the community was involved and do not think that, but that the community might be able to provide some information but does not know that it is significant to the commission. Anything that the Deputy can do to help us with Joe Lynskey would be welcome. All we want is his recovery. There is one thing which I know Mr. McVeigh will say, which made a difference in Crossmaglen. Charlie Armstrong was in his 50s. He disappeared one morning on his way to mass. His neighbour disappeared the year before. They were never claimed on any list but the families believe strongly that they were killed by the IRA. They were never accounted for. One issue was that there was silence in the area. We went back to do masses in the area. Crossmaglen Rangers was good at providing some signage at the grounds to let people know that there was a system and process in place. That was a major help in uncovering those two men, because it was brought to the heart of the community and the community wanted to address it. Those two men are now laid to rest in St. Patrick's graveyard in Crossmaglen. We cannot always rely on people who are still living in the area. They may already have moved out of the area, which is why there needs to be a wider publicity campaign. Anything that the Deputy can do in the local area would help.