Parents question 'flawed' Garda canal death probe

Ms Lynch, who is originally from Gilford, had travelled to Monaghan to stay with her boyfriend at his family home after his brother died.

In the early hours of Saturday 16 March, she was on her way home from a night out with her boyfriend and his friends.

The last confirmed sighting of Ms Lynch was outside a national school about 400 yards from a bridge over the canal where she was found 30 hours later.

Eight months later, Julieanne Lynch said she still has questions about what happened both during the night out and when her daughter was going home to her boyfriend’s house.

“There’s no clarification and there’s a lot of discrepancies," she added. "And I just find it so strange that, you know, eight months on, those answers still have not been given to us.”

A key question in the case is whether Ms Lynch walked off on her own from the national school towards the bridge.

The Lynch family are also unhappy with what they saw as the rude and dismissive attitude of a senior officer in the case.

When their daughter’s clothes were returned to them, they questioned small red marks on her shoes thinking they might have been her bloodstains or someone else’s.

Sean Lynch said: “When I asked the senior investigating officer about it he told me: ‘Sure if you think it’s blood why didn’t you get it tested yourself?’

"And when I put it to them at the meeting, he said: ‘What I said was sure you’re entitled to get it tested yourself.’”

“Adding the word 'entitled' doesn’t make it any less hurtful."

A senior Garda officer apologised to the Lynch family for the comment.