Family of woman missing for 29 years to seek inquest

The family of a woman who vanished from a hospital almost 30 years ago are to press for an inquest into her presumed death, they said today.

Mother-of-seven Alice Clifford was 57-years-old when she disappeared without trace from St Loman’s Hospital, Palmerstown, west Dublin in 1979.

She has never been found and her family now want a fresh investigation – almost three decades on – to fully establish the facts surrounding her disappearance.

Patricia O’Reilly, Alice’s daughter, said the Garda Cold Case Unit is now re-examining the case and she has given DNA samples within the last two weeks to help with their inquiries.

“We would like more answers now, because we know there is more that can be done. Maybe back in the day the police didn’t know what to do,” she said.

Mrs Clifford, from Ballyfermot in west Dublin, was wearing house slippers and a cardigan when she was last seen at the hospital on a rainy, winter’s evening on November 28.

She had only been in the hospital for four days as part of week-long respite to give her family a short break from the demanding care she required.

Her daughter said that although gardaí made inquiries at the time there was a lot more that could have been done.

“We were a very naïve family, we would have just assumed the gardaí do what they do and we left it in their hands. We were waiting for them to get back to us,” she said.

“Over time, they were knocking at the door asking did we see her, when we were waiting on them to tell us that they found her.

“So the family got together and went themselves out looking for her. We stopped a few policemen along the way, asked them had they seen her and they didn’t even know what we were talking about.”

Mrs O’Reilly, who was 18-years-old when her mother vanished, said she wasn’t aware of any investigation by the health authorities.

“We would have been a poor family, my step-father wasn’t working at the time. Because she went missing the way she did we couldn’t claim any insurance because we didn’t know whether she was dead or not,” she said.

“As far as the family are aware, John, her husband, got something like IR£1,200 off the hospital if he didn’t take any further proceedings, and because money was so tight at the time, he took that money.”

The family believed Mrs Clifford could have fallen into the nearby River Liffey or into building works going at the time in the grounds of the hospital.

But Mrs O’Reilly has not ruled out something more sinister

She said she got in touch with gardaí again just before Christmas after reading about recent developments in other missing person cases.

“I started to think we were quite naïve. Maybe there was something more sinister,” she said.

The family are to contact the Coroner’s Office about the possibility of holding an inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death.

The coroner can carry out an inquest and call witnesses, without a body having been recovered, in certain circumstances.

The gardaí have recently put a photograph of Mrs Clifford on their missing persons website along with a description of her as she was last seen.