merrion street

This morning, Minister of State at the Department of Justice and Equality, David Stanton T.D., hosted a commemorative ceremony at King’s Inns to mark the seventh national Missing Persons Day.

Speaking at the ceremony, Minister Stanton said:

Missing Persons Day provides an important annual focal point to raise awareness of missing persons’ cases. It is also crucial that we continue to provide affected families with an appropriate opportunity to communicate their experiences of living with ambiguous loss.

The Minister paid tribute to the ongoing collaboration between key State organisations to obtain much needed answers for the families of missing people.

Among the speakers at this year’s ceremony were An Garda Síochána’s Missing Persons Unit and a representative from the Coroner Service. Also in attendance was Forensic Science Ireland to provide a DNA sample collection for a fourth consecutive year.

Minister Stanton also highlighted the introduction, in November of this year, of the Civil Law (Presumption of Death) Act 2019:

I hope that this new legislation will be of practical support, particularly to families of missing people, by helping those families to conclude necessary financial and property matters.

Missing Persons Day was first launched in December 2013 and has since been developed into an annual campaign in partnership with a range of organisations. 

Today’s ceremony was attended by families and friends of missing persons, a number of whom spoke movingly at the event. 

The ceremony concluded with the symbolic release of homing pigeons.