Panel picks their picture perfect shot
Relatives want to get Tanaiste to help in case
IRELAND’S best press ■
photographer will soon be announced.
Judging of the 45th annual AIB Press Photographer of the Year Award, the annual awards of the Press Photographers Association of Ireland, took
ANGRY relatives of missing Irish girl Amy Fitzpatrick are to start protesting outside the Spanish Embassy in Dublin in their fight for justice.
They are fed up that after 15 years the authorities in Madrid, in their view, have done little or nothing to find the child since she vanished on the Costa Del Sol on New Year’s Day, 2008.
Her aunt Christine Kenny said: “We are a family in limbo. The Spanish have done little or nothing to help us.
“We are demanding the case be upgraded from a missing person to a murder investigation and we have given the Spanish [authorities] new information of where Amy’s body could be buried, and they just ignore it.
“We plan to start protesting outside the Spanish embassy over the coming weeks until they agree to help us.”
Only last week Christine and Amy’s dad Christopher held a protest outside the Dail demanding that the Tanaiste and
Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheal Martin also intervene.
She wants the Department of Foreign
Affairs to put diplomatic pressure on the Madrid place over the weekend at the Maldron Hotel Merrion Road.
More than 1,000 entries ■
from 100 photographers from all around the country were entered in the ten award categories.
Judging for the awards was led
Government and the Guardia Civil to properly investigate the case.
Christine added: “We believe Amy is dead, that something terrible happened to her.
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“My brother is devastated, he just wants to find his little girl, bring her home and bury her.”
The family was contacted by the Department of Foreign Affairs after the Dail protest and were told that the Government will continue to make representations to the Spanish authorities. However the family want Mr Martin to personally get involved. by the chair of the judging panel, former Irish Times picture editor Frank Miller alongside the two judges — international photographer Eddie Keogh, who has over 35 years of experience at the forefront of sports photojournalism and Dublin native Helen
Amy’s case is also now being taken up by Sinn Fein and was raised in the Dail by their justice spokesman Martin Kenny TD.
Mr Kenny said he will be contacting Mr Martin and hopes to arrange a private meeting between the Tanaiste and Amy’s dad and aunt.
Healy who is the current Head of Pictures at the Financial Times newspaper.
The AIB Photographer of ■
the Year Award 2023 will take place at a prestigious gala awards ceremony in the RDS, Dublin, on March 3.
He stated: “I previously raised the case with our Department of Justice, that response was unsatisfactory.”
The Sinn Fein TD said the case must be upgraded to a murder probe after a tip-off that the 15-year-old was buried at an old racetrack outside Fuengirola.