Jo Jo Dullard’s family pleaded with a Fine Gael justice minister more than 25 years ago to help sanction a search of a farm gardaí sealed off yesterday after the arrest of its owner – a deceased ex-Fine Gael politician’s son – on suspicion of Dullard’s murder.
Former minister Nora Owen met the Dullards in 1997 but told them a search was a matter for investigating gardaí – who didn’t upgrade Dullard’s 1995 disappearance to a murder investigation until 2020.
The Dullard family has alleged in the past that gardaí who originally investigated her disappearance deliberately shifted focus away from the area currently being searched because they were shielding a politically connected person of interest from the scope of the investigation.
Gardaí continue to question the man arrested yesterday – who in 1995 admitted he gave Dullard a lift on the night she disappeared – at a station in Kildare while colleagues search his west county Wicklow farm. The 55-year-old has always denied any involvement in Dullard’s disappearance.
Missing
Jo Jo Dullard was last seen in November 1995. Shortly after her disappearance the son of a prominent Fine Gael public representative told media he had given her a lift from Naas to Kildare village Moone at about 11pm on 9 November.
The Dullard family have alleged in the past that gardaí ran a smear campaign to lessen public sympathy towards Jo Jo and leaked intimate details about the young woman to the media.
Her family also claimed a senior garda told them during a 1996 meeting that officers knew the identity of a person of interest in her disappearance but shielded him because of his political connections.
It was also alleged, shortly after she went missing, some investigating gardaí deliberately frustrated the investigation into Dullard’s disappearance to move focus away from the area currently being searched by a new team of officers.
Fine Gael justice minister Nora Owen met with the Dullards in 1997 but said she couldn’t assist them with their request to have her party colleague’s county Wicklow farmland searched.
Shortly before the meeting with Owen the family said it was a “mystery” that the farm had never been searched, according to media reports that did not identify the farm owner’s name or political involvement.
Responding to questions put to her by the Laois Nationalist in 2011, Nora Owen said, “There would have been no direct role for me as minister for justice to tell gardai where to carry out a search."
The Fine Gael elected representative, and owner of the farm, told journalists his son had been “completely eliminated from (garda) inquiries”, according to a 1996 media report.
The now deceased politician – who previously served as head of an influential national representative body – was an ally of John Bruton, taoiseach at the time of Dullard’s disappearance. Bruton had canvassed for the Fine Gael man when he successfully ran for elected office.
Gardaí yesterday began searching land on the farm, a 15-minute drive from where Dullard went missing.
There is no suggestion that the current team of gardaí investigating Dullard’s disappearance have acted unprofessionally.
A spokesperson for the garda press office told The Ditch, “An Garda Síochána does not comment on the detail of ongoing investigations.”
