Missing victims - Time for IRA to heed pleas of families

IF the Provisional IRA has a heart — though many will doubt that proposition — then it is not too much to ask for its members to respond positively to a call by Michael McConville, whose mother Jean disappeared 31 years ago, for more information on where its missing victims are buried.

Along with the McConville family, people the length and breath of the country are hoping tests being carried out will establish if the skeleton found in a shallow grave near Carlingford last week is that of their mother, who was killed by the IRA because she gave succour to a wounded British soldier.

It defies belief that the IRA cannot help locate the bodies of other missing victims of the Troubles.

Despite the passage of time, the Provisionals should still be able to provide more accurate information to help locate the graves of other people who were abducted, murdered and buried by its members.

It is time the IRA heeded the prayers of nine families who long to give their loved ones a Christian burial.