Transcripts courtesy of the Northern Ireland Information Service

Tuesday, June 21, 2005 

The British and Irish governments are to help fund a forensic expert to help locate the Disappeared. Irish News P1, Daily Ireland P3. The McCartney sisters have given their full backing to the campaign to find the body of Bangor woman, Lisa Dorrian. Daily Mirror P8.
 

Program: GMU
Date & Time: 21.6.05 (8.15)
Subject: The ‘Disappeared’

WENDY AUSTIN

….Anna McShane, whose father Charlie Armstrong disappeared in 1981. Is this good news for your family?

ANNA MCSHANE

It is yes, to be taken seriously at long last means an awful lot, this is something we have been talking about for some time, we need specialist help and we need more information. And that the families of the ‘disappeared’ is not something that is just going to disappear themselves, this is something that is ongoing and the families all feel as if they are in limbo and unless this is solved and really solved in all cases this won’t come to an end.

WENDY AUSTIN

Do you think there is a greater chance then of information and of what the Professor there referred to as that kind of cocktail of information and other elements coming together and being perhaps handed on to this person, if he or she is appointed, rather than the difficulties that there might have been otherwise with those who were carrying out the search, who might have been Guards or police or whatever?

ANNA MCSHANE

Yes but I still think you need an awful lot of information. Most of the sites are just large areas and just an X marked somewhere roughly on them. So unless you have a lot more information the Professor and his team will have a lot of hard work to do. Again unless this information comes forward nothing is going to come out of this.

WENDY AUSTIN

You talked about how this was good news for the families of the ‘disappeared’ in that it was showing that they weren’t being forgotten and I know that you have met recently with the Irish Foreign Minister but felt that perhaps he was slightly less concerned than you would have liked and you have heard some views as well from public representatives there that didn’t please you?

ANNA MCSHANE

We did yes. Some of the politicians seemed to think the economy was more important than the families of the ‘disappeared’ and on a recent visit to America the politicians and congressmen and senators there could not believe what we were telling them, that our own country was leaving us standing to one side and Mitchell Reiss himself even said that he would write to the Government stating his views on things and this is something that would have to be highlighted and would have to be dealt with. 

Again each person is entitled to their own opinion but when you sit in a room with family and you say well the economy is moving on, do you not think you should move on? It is an awful statement to make to any family, when they are dealing with their loved ones, this is a very, very important issue to them and it is something that is not going to go away.

WENDY AUSTIN

You mentioned Mitchell Reiss and I know that you had a very sympathetic hearing from him and that he also promised the families that he would write to the Governments. Do you think that he had any hand in this change in tack if you like that seems to have taken place?

ANNA MCSHANE

Yes I do believe that the talks in America have made an awful difference here, that things really have started, it has started the ball rolling and hopefully things will move on from here.

WENDY AUSTIN

You started by saying how difficult it was going to be for whoever it was that was brought in and that is something that you and your family know only too well from your own attempts to find your father after the official dig was called off. What did you do and what was it like trying to make those kind of almost desperate efforts to find him?

ANNA MCSHANE

It is something no family should have to do. We went in, our dig finished very quick and we weren’t happy with that and it is such a large area and we felt we had to do something. And it took us nearly 18 months to get it off the ground by looking permission for the different families that owned the land, looking for special insurance, a digger, a digger man who would be willing to dig for a body, it is not every digger man that will do that. 

To go in as a family with no help, no Garda in weather that turned out to be very, very bad, where you are standing up to your knees nearly in bog water, rats and eels running around you. It became far too much for the family and we had to pull out and we knew ourselves there was no point in trying to go back in unless we had more information and specialist equipment. You can’t do it. With the best of intentions you just can’t do it.

WENDY AUSTIN

But you are hopeful that the experts might be able to make the difference?

ANNA MCSHANE

Yes. But again unless they get more information they can’t do much on the information that they have at the minute. We did mention when we were in America about the specialist equipment, we were told there was still some equipment available in Philadelphia and it is being tested at the minute so we are hopeful even if we could get some of this on hand. But then again that only helps anyone who has a dig site. It doesn’t help the families who have nothing.

WENDY AUSTIN

Gerry Adams said on this program earlier that he has been involved for many years in trying to help by encouraging information, encouraging that moves be made to try to find the ‘disappeared’. Would you like to see those efforts being redoubled perhaps?

ANNA MCSHANE

Yes, I think Gerry Adams could do an awful lot more and I think lip-service isn’t enough in these cases. It is time now with the new remaking as they say of Sinn Fein that they come to these families and show them just exactly what they are doing, meet them half way and say look this is what we are doing, we are trying to do this. 

Let us see this, that there really is something being done and it is not just lip-service. Unless Gerry Adams and his followers, I don’t know what you would say, the people who are involved, no matter how many times these families and I have said this over and over again try and stress that we are not looking anything. 

All we want is our humanitarian rights and that is to bury our dead. We don’t want to know who done these things, why they were done or anything else, we just want our bodies. And we can’t seem to get this across to people. And if you take politics, take everything else away, there is nothing else there only a body and all we want to do is lift it and give a Christian burial. Surely to God these people, if they have any hearts at all, can come forward and give us the information we need to do that.
 

Program: DTR – Peter Hain
Date & Time: 21.6.05 – 10.00
Subject: Search for the disappeared

NAOMI MCMULLAN

The Secretary of State Peter Hain has said he wants to see speedy progress in the search for the disappeared. He was speaking as both the British and Irish Governments agreed to send the leading forensic expert whose been involved in searches for the victims of the Moors murderers in England. Mr. Hain was speaking at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast this morning.

SECRETARY OF STATE

Gerry Adams and other Sinn Fein leaders are very concerned to crack the problem and we are working with the Irish Government. I met the Justice Minister last week to agree on the deployment of a new forensic expert to make sure that we can help identify the graves and the burial places of the people who have disappeared and let’s hope we can do that because it’s the cause of tremendous anguish for the families.

Program:: GMU News – Martina Purdy
Date & Time: 21.6.05 – 7.00
Subject: The disappeared

LINDA REA

The British and Irish Governments have unveiled an initiative in the search for the bodies of the disappeared. They say they’re willing to fund a forensic expert who was involved in the Moors murder case to help. The news was given by the Republic’s Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, at a peace conference in Co Meath.

MARTINA PURDY

Speaking at a conference in Navan on paramilitarism, Michael McDowell appealed for help in finding the bodies of the disappeared, three of which are believed to be buried in Co Meath. He said the Governments had informed both the Victims Commission in Belfast and a forensic expert of their willingness to assist the process financially. He said he had spoke to the Secretary of State Peter Hain about giving support to the forensic expert who had worked on the Moors murders in Yorkshire. 

The Dublin Minister renewed his attack on the Sinn Fein leadership and he demanded no more ambiguity from the IRA on its future. He said he believed Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness were in the process of trying to leave the IRA Army Council. He also condemned nationalists for what he called their ‘gratuitous violence’ against Orange marchers in North Belfast on Friday evening. He said the marchers had acted within the law.