Family calls for teen’s killers to be brought to justice
Daniel was murdered in late February while in the care of the HSE, but no one has been charged despite several people being questioned by gardaí.
The 17-year-old’s aunt, Ann Marie McAnaspie, was one of a number of people protesting outside Leinster House yesterday, where she was joined by relatives of other young people who died while in state care, or having left the care of the HSE.
The group included Daniel’s sisters Catriona and Nikita, as well as family friend Rachel Archibald, and Donna Lambe, the aunt of Danny Talbot, 19, who died while he was in after care.
“Daniel’s murderers are still walking the streets,” Ann Marie McAnaspie said, adding that the men were also suspected of involvement in other recent attacks on people in the Blanchardstown area.
“We spent weeks and weeks searching [for Daniel’s body] and no one had the decency to make a phone call [to tell us where the body was located].”
Daniel went missing on February 26 last, but his body was found in May in a farmer’s field in Rathfeigh, Co Meath. He had been stabbed.
The protesters – among a number of groups demonstrating outside Leinster House yesterday – called for childcare services to be removed from the remit of the HSE.
Donna Lambe said protests would continue outside the Dáil once a month and the group was also planning to carry out demonstrations outside HSE offices.
An independent review group led by child law expert Geoffrey Shannon and Barnardos’s Norah Gibbons is currently examining the deaths of those in care, or known to social care services, over the past decade.
Ms Lambe said she had sent a letter to the group and also to Dr Helen Buckley of Trinity College Dublin, who chairs a review panel of 15 members set up under HIQA’s Guidance for the HSE, asking questions about the powers available to them to investigate the deaths.
An inquest into Danny Talbot’s death is due to be held in the Dublin Coroner’s Court in the next couple of months, while Daniel McAnaspie’s family have a separate application seeking access to files on his case held by the appointed guardian ad litem.
