DAD TELLS PM TO KEEP PEACE ALIVE
Dad tells PM to keep peace alive
By DON MACKAY
THE parents of critically injured Donna Marie Keyes spent an hour with Tony Blair yesterday telling him to stick to the peace process.
Her dad Malachy said: "Our daughter was 100 per cent behind the peace process and we told Tony Blair that.
"We encouraged him to keep going. We told him that peace matters to the ordinary people of Northern Ireland."
Mr Keyes and his wife Patricia have been keeping a bedside vigil for their 21-year-old daughter who is on a life support machine.
She was out shopping with fiance Garry McGillion, 24, whom she was due to marry on Saturday, his sister Tracey Devine and her 20-month-old daughter Breda, when the bomb went off.
Breda died, Tracey has 60 per cent burns and Garry is critically ill. Mr Keyes, who met the PM at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, said: "We thought the peace process was a new opportunity for us.
"For 30 years we despaired and considered leaving this country, but our family was so excited. This was a whole new start."
Mr Keyes said of the blast: "I'm not very well educated in politics and I only pick up what I can understand. But there is no politics in bombing Omagh."
Mrs Keyes added: "Just because our daughter is in intensive care it doesn't mean we don't still believe in the peace process. We are still 100 per cent behind it." She spoke clutching the hand of Helguero Peuch, from Madrid, whose daughter Beatrez, 11, was critically hurt.
Mrs Peuch said it would not put her off visiting Ulster. She said: "There is good and evil everywhere. This happens all over the world. It has been happening in Spain for 20 years."
By DON MACKAY
THE parents of critically injured Donna Marie Keyes spent an hour with Tony Blair yesterday telling him to stick to the peace process.
Her dad Malachy said: "Our daughter was 100 per cent behind the peace process and we told Tony Blair that.
"We encouraged him to keep going. We told him that peace matters to the ordinary people of Northern Ireland."
Mr Keyes and his wife Patricia have been keeping a bedside vigil for their 21-year-old daughter who is on a life support machine.
She was out shopping with fiance Garry McGillion, 24, whom she was due to marry on Saturday, his sister Tracey Devine and her 20-month-old daughter Breda, when the bomb went off.
Breda died, Tracey has 60 per cent burns and Garry is critically ill. Mr Keyes, who met the PM at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, said: "We thought the peace process was a new opportunity for us.
"For 30 years we despaired and considered leaving this country, but our family was so excited. This was a whole new start."
Mr Keyes said of the blast: "I'm not very well educated in politics and I only pick up what I can understand. But there is no politics in bombing Omagh."
Mrs Keyes added: "Just because our daughter is in intensive care it doesn't mean we don't still believe in the peace process. We are still 100 per cent behind it." She spoke clutching the hand of Helguero Peuch, from Madrid, whose daughter Beatrez, 11, was critically hurt.
Mrs Peuch said it would not put her off visiting Ulster. She said: "There is good and evil everywhere. This happens all over the world. It has been happening in Spain for 20 years."
Further Information
Publisher: THE MIRROR
Ref: TM/030
Published Date: 18-Aug-98
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