The sister of one of two women stabbed to death in a community care home in Grangegorman in north Dublin more than five years ago has said she is still waiting for justice to be done.
Ms Stella Nolan yesterday called for a further inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the brutal and as yet unsolved murders of her sister, Ms Sylvia Shields (58), along with her house mate, Ms Mary Callinan (61).
A visibly upset Ms Nolan said she was disappointed that no one has been prosecuted for the murder of her sister, who along with Ms Callinan was found dead on March 7th, 1997, in a community care home they shared adjacent to St Brendan's Psychiatric Hospital.
Ms Nolan made her comments yesterday after her legal team failed in an attempt at Dublin City Coroner's Court to have the jury recommend a full inquiry. The jury returned a verdict that the women, who were low-dependence psychiatric patients, had been unlawfully killed.
"I'm not very happy because I've waited five years and there's still nobody prosecuted for her murder," said Ms Nolan after the hearing concluded.
She said she would "like to see justice being done and being seen to be done. My sister was brutally murdered in sheltered housing and no one has been prosecuted."
Ms Nolan's solicitor, Mr Michael Finucane, said "serious concerns" remained over the Garda investigation. He also expressed his dissatisfaction with the shortcomings of the "outmoded" inquest system which left his clients with many unanswered questions.
He said: "Clearly there are a number of questions to be answered. How it is that no one is prosecuted successfully for this murder? The gardaí certainly haven't been forthcoming with answers to a lot of the questions that remain in this case.
"The coroner's inquest clearly cannot deal with it and at the moment there is no mechanism that is open to Mrs Nolan to ask questions in a public forum. We tried to do that through the inquest and were told we couldn't even ask the questions much less be given answers and that's clearly not satisfactory."
Earlier, a statement was read to the jury by a patient of St Brendan's hospital, who said another patient told someone had been heard screaming at about 2 a.m. on March 7th, the morning the women's bodies were discovered. In his statement, Mr Edward Moloney, who was unfit to attend the court, said he had delivered a message to Ms Shields at her home the previous evening and she had "just looked at me and then closed the door and said nothing".
Det Insp John McMahon said a man who admitted responsibility for one of the murders was initially charged, but the charge was subsequently withdrawn at the direction of the Director of Public Prosecutions. No charges are currently pending in the case.
The court had heard during previous sittings that a convicted killer, Mark Nash, confessed to the murders in 1997 but subsequently retracted this statement. Nash, who refused to give evidence at the inquest, is serving two life sentences in Arbour Hill Prison for the murders of Catherine and Carl Doyle in 1997.
The coroner, Dr Brian Farrell, said last week he regretted he could not compel Nash to give evidence at the inquest because of "glaring anomalies" in the Coroner's Act 1962.
Mr Finucane submitted that the jury should be invited to use its power to attach a rider to its verdict recommending "a full inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the murders". However, Dr Farrell told the jury it was not within its remit to call for other inquiries and that it must adjudicate on the evidence.
Ms Nolan, who described her sister as "a lovely girl," said she was "absolutely disgusted" the jury did not recommend an inquiry.