The mother of Philip Cairns, the Dublin schoolboy who went missing almost 30 years ago, has said she believes he was killed on the day he disappeared.
Philip went missing in Rathfarnham in south Dubln in October 1986 and is presumed dead.
His remains have never been found.
Over 160 new lines of inquiry have been opened since a woman came forward last month and told gardaí she saw convicted paedophile Eamon Cooke attack the 13-year-old boy.
Cooke, who died earlier this month aged 79, confirmed to gardaí during recent interviews in a hospice that he knew Philip in the context of offering to bring and show children his radio station.
A woman, who was a child at the time of Philip's disappearance, told gardaí that Cooke struck the schoolboy with an implement at his Radio Dublin studios and may have killed him.
Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Sean O'Rourke, Alice Cairns said it is her belief that her son had no contact with Cooke before the day he went missing.
Ms Cairns said she feels "robbed" of her son and that he was robbed of a future. She said she does not dwell too much on the person who might have abducted him, adding that she prefers to think about Philip.
She has to have her own peace and for that "you have to forgive", she added.
"We always knew where Philip was until the day he disappeared. He always came straight home from school...
"Unless Eamon Cooke picked up Philip on the day, I don't think he had any communication with him at all before that ... whatever happened with Philip, it happened on the day", she said.
'That was the one day that I wasn't here... when I came home, he wasn't here' Alice Cairns recalls that day pic.twitter.com/G9F1EiII7k
— Today Sean O'Rourke (@TodaySOR) June 16, 2016
Ms Cairns believes her son was abducted and only recently has she come to terms with the fact that he will never come home.
She said over the years, she and her husband held on to the hope that one day a phone call would come with news of Philip.
In relation to the woman who says she witnessed Cooke hitting Philip, she said she bears no ill feelings towards her.
She said it is her wish to know what happened to her son, to be able to lay him to rest, and for the whole episode to come to a conclusion.
