AN EVENT remembering all missing people in Ireland is to take place at Croke Park stadium today, on National Missing Persons Day.
The tenth annual Missing Persons Day is a day for families and friends to remember their missing loved ones, and also provides a nation aside platform to appeal to the public for information on missing persons.
This will be the first event to take place in person in three years following the delivery of online commemorative ceremonies in 2020 ad 2021, and will be hosted by Minister of State at the Department of Justice James Browne TD.
The ceremony will feature spoken contributions from families of missing persons, as well as speeches from the Minister, the Garda Commissioner, and other speakers including state and voluntary organisations, expert practitioners and academics.
The ceremony will also be livestreamed on the Department’s website so that those who unable to attend in person or are living overseas can view the ceremony.
Speaking ahead of the ceremony, Minister Browne said the day is an important date in the national calendar.
"The objective of Missing Persons Day is twofold: the Missing Persons Day ceremony offers families and friends of missing people the opportunity to gather to commemorate their loves ones; while Missing Persons Day equally provides a critical national focal point to raise awareness of Ireland's missing persons.
"I want to use today to echo the central messages we communicate each year. If you have information, no matter how minor it may appear, I would urge you to please come forward and share this information with An Garda Síochána. Any information has the potential to make a contribution to resolving a missing person case."
Today on #MissingPersonsDay please keep the families with missing loved ones in Ireland in your thoughts
Visit https://t.co/mGh14yRy9L for more information @DeptJusticeIRL @gardainfo #ThinkingOfYou #HelpBringThemHome pic.twitter.com/OH2my8sGe4— National Missing Persons Helpline (@nmph_ireland) December 7, 2022
Families of missing persons are also being encouraged to provide DNA samples which can be compared with samples held on Ireland's DNA database.
Forensic scientists will be available at today's ceremony to take samples, or samples can be provided to Gardaí.
Speaking on this National Missing Person’s Day, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said:
"An Garda Síochána has a duty to establish the facts about those who have gone missing in Ireland. The Garda Missing Persons Bureau and Gardaí nationwide work hard to locate all those who go missing. This can sometimes require our close co-operation with international policing partners including Europol and Interpol.
"In recent years, there has been a greater, collective focus on ensuring families are kept informed of the progress of investigations. The tools available to us to investigate missing persons also continue to expand and improve. Advances in DNA Tracking and the establishment of a National Missing Persons DNA database place us in a far stronger position to identify those who have gone missing."
This year’s ceremony commences at 11.15 a.m. and is livestreamed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3SV0Ndov-
The ceremony will also be available to be watched back on the Department’s website at any point after the conclusion of the event.
