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A CORONER HAS found that missing teenager Arlene Arkinson was murdered by convicted child killer Robert Howard in 1994 on the balance of probability.
Coroner Brian Sherrard delivered his findings at Omagh Courthouse today following a long-running inquest into the teenager’s death.
He found that she died on the morning of 14 August 1994.
“There is no record of her being alive after that date,” he said.
“Robert Howard – a violent sexual offender and the last person to be seen with Arlene, in the early hours of August 14 1994 – was responsible for her death.”
Arkinson (15) from Castlederg in Co Tyrone disappeared in August 1994 following a night out at a disco in Bundoran, Co Donegal.
She was last seen in a car driven by Howard, a convicted child killer and rapist who died in prison in England in 2015 aged 71.
Howard was charged with murdering the 15-year-old, but acquitted in 2005.
The jury was not told the predator, originally from Co Laois, had a history of sexual violence.
By the time of his trial he was already serving a life term for killing and raping London teenager Hannah Williams.
An inquest into Arlene’s death finished hearing evidence in 2019, after more than a decade of stop-start hearings.
Despite extensive searches, Arlene’s remains have never been found.
A grave in Co Sligo was exhumed by gardai in March 2018 but was found to contain the remains of an adult male.
Arlene’s family have repeatedly said that they will never give up hope of recovering her body.
Speaking in 2019, Arlene’s sister Kathleen said: “She was 15 when she went missing
“It was us that suffered, dragged through the mud, what the police gave us was unbelievable but we are still standing here and I will be here until Arlene is found.
“I will never give up looking for Arlene and I would like to thank the public for their prayers, and keep Arlene in their prayers.”
The inquest first opened in November 2007 but has faced several delays over the years due to a number of factors including legal challenges, resource issues and difficulties obtaining documents from Gardaí.
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Why can we not make them ourselves here… Come on engineers, figure out how to do it and where…
@michal heba: Probably supply chain, raw materials etc. Just a guess.
@michal heba: we can, but it costs a lot more than getting it from cheap Chinese labour
@michal heba: because it’s different material to ordinary gowns, kinda plasticky and China has the raw material – we don’t. We can make all the other stuff which is cloth like alright but doesn’t meet the standard.
@michal heba: we are making them but not fast enough or in large enough quantities
@James Gorman: Why aren’t we buying the material from them?
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Who is making them here?
@Mary Morrisey: Coz every country on the planet is trying to buy from them…hence the shortage of raw materials.
@Jo Joyce: an that’s the whole problem we have… Some serious changes need to happen
@Jim Buckley Barrett: what about multiple use gowns made out of heavier material and just sterilise them… So many factory’s shut with technology to do it.. .. I’m sure they could help… I’m only guessing
@michal heba: most fabrics are wholly unsuitable for use as ppe in a pandemic. The reason being that the gaps between the fabrics are too large,compared to the size of the virus molecules. Also, they need to be liquid resistant or repellant, and too many fabrics are also neither. Ppe is made up of multiple layers of a couple of different materials, oneswhich are largely plasticky in nature.
@Tommy Roche: If they can supply the made garment, they can supply the raw material even faster.
@Mary Morrisey: Jim gets it. We can, but by the time we repurpose a factory to build them, the supply chain will have caught up, and we will have spent millions on gowns that need to be exported.
How on earth can the HSE not have predicted this? After all they have been planning this since January (apparently) but to me a 12 year old could plan better. If this was a private company heads would roll, but not with a public company. Someone here needs to be held accountable here if not now,after this pandemic is over, lives are being put in danger due to the HSE’s incompetence…over 25% of infected people are health care workers, wither source these supplies from somewhere else or fast track the existing orders.
@Brendan Murphy:
You really don’t understand what’s happening across the world do you?
Your ‘solution’ is to blame someone in the HSE. Thankfully we don’t have clowns like you in charge.
@Brendan Murphy: Perhaps the Chinese PPE manufacturers were rushed off their feet supplying PPE to Chinese Medics at the time. It takes a while to build up extra production lines.
@Doug: They’re not even researching this stuff now..just straight up ‘HSE’s fault’…. No other reasons..
@Doug: Why did Harris continually refuse to meet with Nursing homes body? Surely if planning, this body would be important to meet no?
@Aidan Baragry: What are you asking Doug for? Ask Harris!
@Brendan Murphy: no country were planning for this scale since January. None.
@Brendan Murphy: Brendan have you any ideas on how the crises could be better managed. I’d imagine your input would be appreciated. Rate of health care workers here not much different from anywhere else. It is an occupational hazard.
@Brendan Murphy: the reason we are needing to control this so much is that our front line has been mistreated and underfunded for the last 10 years at the hands of a Fine Gale government. In addition we have a HSE that is top heavy with clerical staff and not front line. Where is Hiqa in all this?
@Ricky: hurlers on the ditch
@Doug: all I’m looking for is accountability it seems no one in government or the HSE is held accountable for their actions?? Why??
@John fitzpatrick: well then why did Simon Harris and The CMO keep saying that they where planning all this since January?? If you don’t believe me read this article… https://merrionstreet.ie/en/News-Room/Releases/Statement_from_the_National_Public_Health_Emergency_Team111111111.html
@Dnom: I 100% agree with you here, like many underfunded health care systems throughout the world.
@Ricky: so ricky I do check my facts out see attached update from the government to say they have been planning this since January, also where is the accountability of anyone in the HSE who orders equipment that isn’t fit for purpose? If this was a private company then heads would roll, but not a public company we just put up with it, also there isn’t enough front line staff, the HSE is hemorrhaging money with all the top brass, who by the way have order such equipment, and didn’t put any checks in place to make sure we where getting the equipment that was ordered, you wouldn’t go out and simply hand over money to buy a car without seeing it would you?
Hes ‘pleased’ that the back log is only 11,000 !! Jeez, my son in law who works in a unit for disabled adult residents got his results yesterday… after a wait of 23 days, he was positive, 23 days ago .
Not good enough, they opened the testing units knowing full well they hadnt the ability to cope.
@Sam Greene: surely he was self isolating in the mean time and taking proper care of himself?
@Máirtín Ó Conghaile: obviously.
In fairness the Government should now consider hazard payments to all our hospital front liners
@rendams: Life isn’t always fair. It’s a great idea, but where should that money come from? Which budget?
@rendams: Supermarket and Public transport staff will then also want additional hazard pay, where does it stop and have you specific details where it comes from?
Lets wait 12 to 18 months, see where we’re at as a country and backdate staff IF somehow it can be afforded.
@Gavin Mckenna: Supermarket and public transport staff are not in direct contact by assessing and treating patients with Covid 19. Your comparison makes no sense. Saying that, hazard pay is the wrong way to go. Medics know what their jobs may entail. Let’s make sure they have the correct equipment to protect themselves.
@rendams: Instead, the HSE could just treat its frontline staff properly when this epidemic is over esp regarding pay, not forcing its doctors to break working hrs rules, ensure adequate staffing, ensuring adequate rest and break times for staff, ensuring staff are paid for overtime that they are forced to work, ensuring staff arent required to find their own cover for sick leave when sick (this esp affects doctors in many hosapital), ensuring that staff are paid for annual leave left untaken because of staffing issues (again this particularly effects doctors who arw required to move jobs every 6 months)
@Damon16: Im not in the public sector in anyway but I think we need to look at nurses and doctors wages etc. If we cant pay them more maybe they should be getting an additional tax credit beyond the flat rate expenses. Hate to say it but other professions certainly dont seem as valuable all of a sudden, mine included.
Seperately, the EU needs to look at bring manufacturing inhouse to a certaim extent. Too much is outsourced. Caps/taxes on certain imports to make domestically or european based essential goods more competitive and keep control within the EU. The EU failed Italy and its been a bit of every state for itself. Need to come together and be better.
Cancel the order from China who provided us with low quality PPE and ask Taiwan or South Korea to give us our moneys worth. or is the government insist on giving the glorious Chinese Communist government hundreds of millions of tax payer money despite them not caring about health, safety or quality?
@Franky Jefferson: serious question, how much of your own personal cash have you spent on goods that were made in china?.
@Franky Jefferson: they did not supply low quality . They supplied hazard suits which is what one wears for protection in infectious wards . If the HSE wants to work with gowns for speed that’s another story
@Roy Dowling: I don’t know, I don’t keep a spreadsheet but I generally avoid known Chinese brands. I probably have spent money on Chinese made goods, in fact everyone has. It’s sad that you think that’s any argument against not buying PPE from China. Really bad argument.
@Isabel Oliveira: They supplied gowns that were too short, they supplied Spain and the Czech Republic with test kits that were only 30% accurate. If you bought a pregnancy test that was only 30% accurate, you would want a refund. When China sends fault equipment, Ireland goes back for more. Absurd.
@Roy Dowling: I think the better question is how much will Franky Jefferson buy in the future.
@Franky Jefferson. My point is simple if you spend your money on and have products from communist China in your own home please don’t slate the HSE for buying essential ppe for our frontline staff from the same communist China.
@Roy Dowling: we got 85% of gowns from China that were up to spec that we didn’t have before, and 70% accuracy (dubious claim, as there isn’t time to test this) on repeatable test to assist in diagnosis is better than 0% on asymptomatic illnesses. Anyway, I’ll go online to see how our millionaire communist party planner is getting on with sourcing even cheaper pap from China.
@Roy Dowling: your right. Just opened a brand new HP all in one computer costing me 1600 euro and in the notes in the box said.. Made in China
@Geoff Bateman: I suppose since we already own a Laptop that was made in China, it must mean we should just accept that 20% of the things we BOUGHT costing hundreds of millions of Euro is just going to be completely useless to our healthcare workers at this critical time… and it also must mean we are locked forever in buying them from China due to the fact that we have previously bought things from China… meanwhile Taiwan with actual health and safety regulations is GIVING AWAY actual quality PPE… but nope, we’re going to refuse all that because remember…. we bought a HP laptop from China.
Makes perfect sense right? We can’t decide to change nor can we decide in this one critical area we cannot risk the health of HSE workers… not in the black & white world Roy lives in.
@Mary Morrisey: I don’t understand why it is even relevant how much i’m going to buy from China, I could easily just say 0 things but even if I was going to buy a toenail clipper next week from China, how does that defeat the argument that Ireland shouldn’t continue giving them hundreds of millions of our money for PPE when 20% of what we’ve already received is useless when other countries like Taiwan are literally giving PPE away. Why does an item in my house with “Made In China” mean that we as a country are therefore locked in forever with continuing to buy PPE for healthcare workers from China? Why does one have this loyalty to a communist dictatorship? I’ve never said I’ve never bought anything from China, that would be a lie and dishonest as every single person has, i’m not making that argument, my argument is that the government should find another supplier from a country with health and safety regulations since it’s obvious it’s not enforced in China.
Ah lads, rally the troops, the ICA, the students of NCAD, IADT, crafters, designers, sewing bee’s – one for all ☘️
@Emer Caffrey: ICA is already making and advertising for more people to help. Dont have to be an ICA member the ad said. Saw it on social media a few days ago.
Reid said that tough new regulations are being put in place in China to ensure that exports of PPE are “up to standard” and that he has spoken to the Chinese Ambassador to ensure it won’t lead to a delay in equipment reaching Ireland
Let’s hope.
@John Hazelnut: and the Chinese really care about Ireland
@Dnom: they’ll care about getting paid
I watched a report last night on sky where a reporter went into a hospital in Naples. No staff have been infected. They are dressed on full hazardous suits and wear gas masks. It’s worth a look at. Also the shoes carry the virus inside your home.
@Dizzy: They were disinfecting shoes coming out of a hospital setting where obviously the chances of carrying it on your shoes would be much greater
@Dizzy: Media have been very very low key on this “shoes carrying the virus” line, sounds very serious but literally nothing ever mentioned? I’d say risk is extremely low. Actually, non existent.
https://www.thejournal.ie/coronavirus-shoes-ground-whatsapp-covid-home-surface-5064978-Apr2020/
@Gavin Mckenna: I know that you can’t believe everything you read https://mol.im/a/8213715
@Dizzy: they were all wearing 3M PPE. This is an American company that Trump told they can no longer supply any other country. One of the biggest PPE manufactures in the world of the N95 masks.
@Jason Pierce: it looks like the real deal in ppe equipment .
@Dizzy: the best of the best really. Can you believe Trump rerouted a plane full of 3M heading for France or Germany to the US.
@Dizzy: Very noteworthy article, Dizzy, although the virus on shoe soles stuff would very much mostly apply to hospital staff walking through COVID 19 wards more than casual shoppers. Noteable article, thanks.
@Jason Pierce: When it comes to Trump sadly I can.
@Dizzy: shoes may carry the virus but I for one don’t normally touch my mouth nose or eyes with my shoes. There are bigger risks to worry about
@Máirtín Ó Conghaile: No 1 does but you can walk into your home with it and then it’s inside. If you have children that play on the floor they will pick it up. No work the rest out for yourself.
@Dizzy: Now
We were told 14 years of supply was brought in two weeks ago. Was that fake news ?
Can we not make PPE in Ierland or sorceit it from another Country bar china
@Tony Martin: Course we can, Taiwan and other countries with actual health and safety regulations would LOVE our business… yet what is Ireland doing? We give the country that sent us crap a second chance…. because apparently we have all the time in the world to wait for China to get things right, not like lives are on the line or anything.
@Franky Jefferson: where will we get the raw materials from? Unfortunately you can’t make hundreds of thousands of protective gowns out of potatoes and hay.
@GrumpyAulFella: But you can make them from Cotton and high temperature laundry will allow reuse. We successfully dealt with TB in an era when all Gowns were laundered and TB is a lot harder to kill than SARS Covid 19.
@Bryan Long: don’t they all contain aramid and other specialist protective fibres? I think O’Neills are making some gear but I don’t believe that we have sufficient supplies nor machinery to create a pop-up industry which is what is required just now.
Frontline Staff with the Extra pressures to protect themselves and Residents in Intellectual disability/mental health Facilites must All be cared for with the appropriate equipment to do so.
They are much too late with their testing. HSE have let the country down.
@Locojoe: No. In the first ever national emergency of its kind, the HSE has done a good job overall. Blaming it for issues beyond its control (such as the lack of assay for the tests) is nonsense.
I am going to be very careful where products I buy from now on come from, I think after this we need to buy Irish or at least European as much as we can, , to support our own country and other European countries that have been hit hard I think this reliance on China for goods is a bit dangerous. And I know stuff from China is cheaper but I’m going to do my best. We need to financially support each other.
Do not get from China. Please dont get from China. They are not good enough to provide acceptable material. Why irish government is BLIND.
Time for him to start justifying his 350k salary by putting together a better plan for PPE and testing. As head of the HSE that is literally his job.
Can we not make gowns in IRELAND. WITH SO MANY TAILORING DRESS MAKING SHOPS CLOSED AND THEIR WORKERS I’M SURE COULD STEP UP TO THE PLATE AND PRODUCE THE GOODS.
Why can gowns not be washed/disinfected/etc and reused? We’re told clothing washed in normal washing detergent is safe as the detergent kills the virus so surely there us a process by which these gowns can be sterilised.
Looking at the sums involved I sincerely hope they won’t be paying for any unusable PPE and if they are throwing money away they might look at giving some to the countless commercial tenants of small shops,coffee shops,restaurants etc who are being hassled by their landlords for rents while their businesses are closed.
It is time that frontline staff in nursing homes go back to uniforms and shoes.They flaunt leggings complete with love handles and camel toes and canvas/ germ absorbing runners.Disgusting and unprofessional.
@Brianog2: dirty knickers
@Stephen Brady: abrasive thongs
@Brianog2:
Yeah…blame the carers putting their lives on the line – not the criminal negligence of the FG Government.
I thought the Chinese gear was rubbish? !
So why are we still looking for it?
(I’m being a bit cynical…we’ve had so many anti-Chinese gibberants on here)
I thought we had a few forms pumping these out like no mans business
Jaysus we have people who can make gown at home !
We’re giving it a go. – love to hear from garment manufacturing companies to get involved. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgqNajheNCw&feature=youtu.be
have your say