John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank and congratulate my colleagues in Fianna Fáil, namely, Senators Blaney and McGreehan, for proposing this motion. Both Senators have been strong advocates for this on the Good Friday committee, which I sit on, and in this House. I warmly welcome the families. I have met Oliver before. I thank them for being here.

I am 32 years of age, from Dundalk and grew up in the 1990s with a concept of the Northern Irish Troubles. So many of the disappeared who have been recovered were buried in the soil of my county. I often think if it was not for a storm in Shelling Hill in 2002 and coastal erosion, would Michael McConville be here tonight not knowing where his mother was buried? Many things come into play in this when we look at the disappeared who have turned up in County Louth: Gerry Evans was recovered from Carrickrobin; Jean McConville was recovered from Shelling Hill beach; Eamonn Molloy's body was discovered in a coffin in Faughart graveyard; Eugene Simons was discovered in a bog in Knockbridge; Captain Robert Nairac is almost undoubtedly buried in Ravensdale forest.

People came for these people to take human life and dignity in one of the cruellest fashions possible. All of these were innocent young people with their lives ahead of them. Their lives were extinguished and taken away from them by the IRA based on nothing more than wrong information, falsehoods, lies and rumour. There are still families who have not been able to give Christian burials or to take their loved ones home, look after them, bury them and give them a proper funeral. It is utterly grotesque and heartbreaking that 50, 40, 30 or 20 years on, these families do not get basic justice. We will all have the privilege and pleasure of taking loved ones who pass from our lives to their resting place. Many of these families are still waiting for that privilege.

We talk about wanting information, wanting to find out what happened and people having to come forward. The IRA took these people to their graves, stole away these family members and put these people in the cold grey soil of my county, Louth, Senator Gallagher’s county, Monaghan, and elsewhere in the Border region. If people still at high levels in Sinn Féin know who was involved in these murders and the people involved have subsequently died or, because of the passage of time, cannot exactly remember, at least say that. They should, if they are serious about wanting information and bringing a resolution to these families, come out and say these people were involved, these people have died, this person has Alzheimer’s disease or dementia, this person does not know and that they genuinely, hand on heart, cannot help in locating an individual. That would bring some sort of closure and would be better than silence or saying “Well, we would like information to come forward”. I am only in this House two years and have listened to this. I do not know how the families have listened to it for 50, 40 or 30 years. I have no idea. It is the same mealy-mouthed “If you have information, come forward”.

There is one political party in this country who knows where these people are buried, or knows the people who know, and members of that party need to look at themselves and figure out what they want to do.