‘Twenty years on we still feel the pain’

Justice Minister Alan Shatter was visibly moved yesterday when he launched Missing Persons Day at Farmleigh House in Dublin.

His voice broke when he told relatives of some of the missing that he hoped he would be forgiven for only mentioning Dublin schoolboy Philip Cairns.

“Philip’s disappearance, on his way back to Coláiste Eanna school in Ballyroan, Rathfarnham, after lunch at home on Oct 12, 1986, was my first personal experience as a young TD of someone inexplicably disappearing,” he said, clearly upset.