The mother of Midleton schoolboy Robert Holohan has called on Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to reform the judicial system so that the victims of crime have a greater say in the way justice is administered.
Majella Holohan said yesterday that he and her husband, Mark, felt let down by the judicial system after their neighbour, Wayne O'Donoghue, was acquitted of the murder of 11-year-old Robert and sentenced instead to four years in jail for manslaughter.
"We have gone through the judicial system and obviously we feel that it failed us as parents of a little boy," Ms Holohan said.
"Mr McDowell is obviously looking at the justice system at the moment and things are going to change."
She added that the victim "has to have more of a say" in the judicial system.
"Things are getting very tough in the country at the moment, people are afraid in their homes, it's time for hard law to come into this country."
Ms Holohan reiterated that she stood over everything she said in her victim impact statement at O'Donoghue's sentencing at the Central Criminal Court in January 2005, including questions she raised as to how semen was found on her son's body.
"I stand over everything I said in my victim impact statement - we told no lies, I think the truth is there, everything is on the Garda file," said Ms Holohan.
She had departed from the text of an agreed statement at the sentencing to raise the question of the semen.
O'Donoghue admitted strangling Robert outside the O'Donoghue home at Ballyedmond, Midleton, on January 4th, 2004, but he said it happened accidentally after he had sought to admonish Robert for throwing stones at his car.
He also admitted putting Robert's body in the boot of his car and driving 12 miles to Inch Strand, where he dumped the body in a glen.
It was discovered there eight days later.
After attending the second anniversary Mass for Robert at the church of the Most Holy Rosary in Midleton, Ms Holohan thanked all those who had supported them but said that losing a child was the worst thing that could happen to a parent.
"People are absolutely fantastic. Hopefully, we'll get through this but losing a child is, I would say, the toughest thing that any parent could go through," she said. "I have friends who have lost their child but I didn't realise it until I lost my own son."
Ms Holohan thanked gardaí in Midleton and elsewhere involved in the investigation as well as local priests, particularly Dean Éamon Goold and Fr Billy O'Donovan, and the thousands of people who sent Mass cards or remembered them in their prayers.
Asked if she could ever forgive O'Donoghue, she said she found it difficult to answer that and she doubted if she and her family would ever recover from the terrible tragedy that they suffered.
Massgoers included Chief Supt Liam Hayes, Insp Martin Dorney and Det Sgt Brian Goulding who were centrally involved in the investigation.
After Mass, the family went to the adjoining graveyard where Robert is buried.
