Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, has said that if people need to be held accountable in the case of Kyrin Durnin, then that would happen, and she also called for anyone with information in the case to come forward to assist in the investigation.
“I would just encourage anybody that has any information that they feel might not be significant, but any small detail might help on this,” she told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
Her calls come as the third day of the search of the former family home of eight-year-old Kyran Durnin gets underway in Dundalk. He is missing and presumed dead.
Ms McEntee said she hoped that the case would be resolved as quickly as possible and that if people needed to be held accountable, then that would happen.
“If there are changes that need to happen with any of the structures in our state, then that has to happen, too. This is a young boy and it really is a really devastating case," she said.
“I think we're all devastated at the idea that a child could be missing for potentially two years. I mean, the last sighting that we know of was in 2022 towards the end of the year. So we need to understand what's happened here.”
Ms McEntee said there was an ongoing garda investigation, and it would be helpful in understanding what happened in those two years, and before as well.
“Were there failures here? Was there something that could be done? Because there is now a murder investigation. This is not a missing child investigation. This is a murder investigation," she said.
"So how has this happened? What has happened to Kyran Durnin? How do we find him? And how do we make sure that if there are problems here, that we fix them now?”
Gardaí launched a murder inquiry earlier this month, as they believe he may be dead for as long as two years, and have started excavating a section of wasteland behind his former family home in Dundalk, Co Louth.
The house, where new tenants unconnected to the investigation now live, was taken into possession of gardaí after they were granted an order by the District Court.
Gardaí are expected to carry out searches of at least four properties in Co Louth as part of their investigation into the suspected murder of Kyran Durnin.
The youngster’s mother has been located, but investigators say the whereabouts of Kyran remain unknown, and he is now presumed dead.
Speaking in the Dáil, Taoiseach Simon Harris said the “saddest and most painful thing” about the case is that nobody asked where he was for some two years.
“I don’t think there’s a person on any side of this House, or a person in Ireland who isn’t both utterly horrified and utterly heartbroken at what is emerging in relation to the case of young Kyran Durnin,” Mr Harris said.
“It’s nothing to do with political establishment or any sort of rhetoric like this. This is just to do with basic humanity.
“An eight-year-old boy, effectively went missing for two years, and the saddest and most painful thing is that nobody asked why or where was he for that period of time.
“I think any one of us thinking that that could happen to any child is deeply upsetting, and it is going to require, and maybe I should say this at the outset, it is absolutely going to require a structure to get to the exact bottom of this. Of that, there is no doubt.
“But right now, we have to be very conscious of the fact that the gardaí are very actively investigating this. To say there’s a live investigation under way would capture it.”
