NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

The findings of the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry must be implemented immediately, a priest has urged at the funeral of Billy McConville in west Belfast on Wednesday.

Fr Patrick McCafferty told mourners at Mr McConville’s funeral Mass in St Paul’s Church on the Falls Road that all of society had an obligation to make reparation to those who were abused in church and state institutions.

Mr McConville (50), the son of Disappeared victim Jean McConville, died from cancer last Sunday in the Northern Ireland hospice. The funeral Mass for his mother was held in the same church in 2003.

As a six year-old he was taken into care along with his nine brothers and sisters after the IRA abducted, murdered and secretly buried Jean McConville in 1972. Her remains were discovered on a beach in Co Louth in 2003.