Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. This is not a confrontational exchange. Rather, I am seeking to improve what the State is providing. What the Minister has said is good. However, I have an issue with the date of 2019. Another lot of these cases are historical and go back a few decades. We are not talking about going back to the 1900s or even the early 20th century. Cases date from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 2000s.

At the moment there are 22 unidentified bodies and over 810 people on the missing persons list. There are many more unidentified bodies in cemeteries all over the country that are not contained in any database. There is an awful lot of work to do to find the truth for these families. We need an unidentified remains unit. Great work is being done by FSI, and the Garda missing persons unit is doing its work. However, we need some expertise to join that up and it needs to be resourced by the State. It would not require huge resources, but it is needed.

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