‘We are coming here with hearts broken': Prayer service to be held for Fermanagh shooting victims
Co Clare
for a
mother and two children killed
in a shooting incident in
Co Fermanagh
.
Vanessa Whyte (45), a vet from Co Clare, her son James (14) and daughter Sara (13), were killed in a suspected triple murder and attempted suicide at a house in Maguiresbridge on Wednesday morning.
Ms Whyte was originally from Barefield, a village near Ennis in Co Clare.
A murder investigation has been launched, while an adult male remains in a serious condition in hospital.
READ MORE
A prayer service will take place at the Church of Immaculate Conception in Barefield on Sunday evening.
A notice on the parish website describes it as a service to remember Vanessa, Sara and James.
Barefield parish priest, Fr Tom Fitzpatrick, said the community wanted to gather together to remember the family.
The prayer service has been organised to take place on Sunday evening to allow for Ms Whyte's brother, Ivor, to travel home from
Australia
.
'The prayer service was organised by the community, myself and the pastoral council. We planned it days ago,' Fr Fitzpatrick said.
'The purpose of the service is to gather as a community and be with the family and let them know we are thinking of them and we are here in shock and in pain.
'When something happens in a rural community, even to one person, it affects everybody. We are coming here with hearts broken. A lot of the community knew Vanessa and she was so well loved.'
It is understood that the funeral of the mother and her two children will take place in Barefield later this week.
On Saturday, detectives from the major investigation team, who are carrying out the murder investigation, said they are continuing with their inquiries and appealed for information involving the movements of a vehicle.
Detective Chief Inspector Neil McGuinness said: 'Our investigation is ongoing and we are working tirelessly to determine the exact circumstances of this tragedy.
'I would continue to appeal generally for anyone with information to come forward, and more specifically, I would ask anyone who saw
a silver Mercedes saloon car
being driven in the Clones Road area of Newtownbutler, or between Maguiresbridge and Newtownbutler, on the evening of Tuesday July 22nd, to call detectives on 101, quoting reference 276 23/07/25.
'Anyone who was travelling in the area and who may have captured dashcam footage which could assist, please get in touch.'
The man who remains in a serious condition in hospital was a member of the same household, the PSNI said.
On Friday, hundreds of people
attended a community vigil
for the family in Maguiresbridge. – PA
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Successive government housing policies have created a situation where many refugees with permission to live and work in the State are unable to find a place to live and must turn to local authorities for support, says Allen. As a result, some of these could end up in State-provided accommodation 'owned by the same landlord but operated by a different arm of the State'. His comments echo those of Dublin Region Housing Executive director Mary Hayes who told an Oireachtas Committee on housing last month that the homeless system had become the 'institutional discharge from one institution to another'. The main factor driving adult-only homelessness is people leaving direct provision, according to the latest DRHE figures. Andrew Geddes, director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute, says some European international protection systems, including the Irish model, have developed a 'permanent temporariness' in their approach to asylum. 'What you're effectively doing is warehousing people in the absence of a longer-term plan,' he says. Susan Fratzke, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute, says an ability by government to 'flex up and flex down' in response to unpredictable changes in migration patterns, driven by war and climate change, is a key element of long-term asylum planning. She argues that while State-owned properties are a key element of a functioning asylum housing system, reliance on private contractors is also important. She says European governments need to plan for fluctuation so when numbers decrease, they can prepare for the next surge. 'This causes political tension because governments don't like to say we're planning for a rise in asylum claims, they prefer to talk about what they're doing to reduce numbers,' she says. 'But they could save money by being more realistic about these numbers. That requires political will.' A Department of Justice spokesman said the Government was working towards 'developing a more stable and sustainable accommodation system in the long term' and was moving away from reliance on the private sector through the purchase of 'more accommodation on State-owned lands'. This includes the recent purchase of Citywest Hotel and campus. The Department of Housing has made a similar commitment for homeless people – a spokesman said efforts are ongoing to reduce reliance on private emergency accommodation and secure supported housing operated by NGOs.
