Campaign for database of missing persons

A nationwide campaign is being launched today to set up a national database of missing persons and to establish the identity of body parts retrieved off west and south east coasts.

Known as the “forgotten dead”, they include six different sets of human remains retrieved along the Waterford and Wexford coasts since 1999 and two bodies in the city morgue in Galway.

A committee which is due to be formed this evening in Waterford will lobby TDs, make a presentation in the Dáil and is seeking a meeting with Justice Minister Alan Shatter. It will also focus on hundreds of Irish people who have gone missing over the past decade and seek to give a dignified burial to those who have perished and were never identified.