Mary Boyle’s sister to call for garda chief to go

The twin sister of Ireland’s youngest and longest-missing person is to travel to Washington next week for a series of meetings with Irish-American politicians, lobbyists and organisations.

Ann Doherty is expected to relay to members of the US Congress her belief that her sister Mary Boyle, 6, was sexually assaulted and murdered when she went missing from her grandparents’ rural Co Donegal home in 1977, and she will further claim that the investigation into her disappearance has been the subject of garda and political interference.

She is also expected to call for the resignation of Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald and Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan for “failing Mary Boyle, her right to justice, and the public interest”.

“The key purpose of this trip is to open Irish-America’s eyes and those of the US authorities to the widescale corruption in the Irish police and the criminal justice system,” Ms Doherty said in a statement.

“For most of my adult life I have known who murdered Mary. He is walking around Donegal today, immune from prosecution. Instead of arresting him, the gardaí have targeted me, and others who have stood up for Mary’s right to justice, in what can only be called an insidious campaign of intimidation,” she claimed.

Ms Doherty will travel to Washington with journalist Gemma O’Doherty, who has been investigating the case, and the pair will meet with Congressman Brendan Boyle, whose father is from Co Donegal, and lawyer and former US congressman Bruce Morrison, who is credited with helping the peace process in the North.

Ms Doherty has already travelled to Westminster and Brussels to discuss her sister’s disappearance with officials there, and met Taoiseach Enda Kenny last November to outline her concerns. Last October, Ms Fitzgerald told the Dáil that a review of the case has been ongoing since 2011, and that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission is also conducting an investigation on foot of complaints.

A 64-year-old man was arrested in October 2014 by gardaí but was released the next day without charge.