The mother of Cameron Blair, who was fatally stabbed in 2020, says nobody should have to see their child lying dead after a "senseless" attack.
Kathy Blair told Upfront: The Podcast that she is speaking out so no other parents goes through what they did.
20-year-old Cameron was a second-year chemical engineering student at Cork Institute of Technology. He died in Cork University Hospital after he was stabbed in the neck outside a house party on the Bandon Road in Cork on 16 January 2020.
The 17-year-old responsible was sentenced to life in detention, with a minimum term of 13 years before a review in 2032.
Ms Blair said she hopes her story can help others.
"I really don't want this to happen to anybody else," she said.
"I just don't think anybody should go through this and that's why I'm speaking out now in the hope that it might help somewhat."
Cathy recalls seeing her son’s body the night he was stabbed as "a sight that will never leave me".
"I can still see it and my beautiful, beautiful boy," she said.
"It's not something that anybody should see their child lying dead at the age of 20 for no reason, it was just senseless."
Cathy said there should be a mandatory sentence imposed on anyone caught in possession of a knife.
"Maybe start off, for a first-time offence, maybe six months in prison," she said.
"I think it would work - especially if it was a first-time offence - it would just nip it in the bud and hopefully people could get on a proper path again".
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
Ms Blair said there was no sense to her son’s murder.
"What he did to us, to take somebody's life - you can't undo death," she said.
"Cameron is gone; he's murdered my son. He murdered him for no reason."
Ms Blair said she hopes her son’s killer will never be released.
"In my eyes, anybody who commits murder for no reason, in cold blood they should never get out. Life is such a precious thing.
"Think if it was your son or daughter and they took their life for no reason.
"There was no fight over anything - this wasn't a car accident; it was just pure evil. He should never see outside life again, in my opinion."
The identity of the man responsible for his murder cannot be revealed due to a Supreme Court ruling last month that overruled a Court of Appeal judgment permitting the naming of the young man, who was 17 when he pleaded guilty to Cameron's murder.
Ms Blair said this is something she thinks needs to change.
"It's not right - if somebody murders somebody, they have no right to anonymity (once they reach 18)," she said.
"They should surely wavier that right because it's just not fair.
"Our names are everywhere, everybody knows us, knows who we are.
"And to commit such a heinous crime, I just don't think you deserve to remain anonymous.
"If you ask me, there's an awful lot of protecting the criminal more so than the victim in a lot of cases."
Watch: Upfront with Katie Hannon's discussion on knife crime
On Upfront with Katie Hannon this week, Fianna Fáil TD Willie O'Dea said he "spoke to the Minister for Justice Jim O'Callaghan" about the issue and that the minister "agreed to have a serious look at it".
In a statement to Upfront, Minister O'Callaghan said he is aware of the judgment and officials in the department are "carefully considering the judgement and its implications".
Ms Blair said she would cautiously welcome any change.
"I don't know how it's going to pan out, but we'll see," she said.
"I'm trying not to dwell on it too much - we were very disappointed after the Supreme Court ruling."
Stop and search
Ms Blair’s call for tougher sentencing comes amid growing concern over knife crime, with seizures down slightly year-on-year, but up nearly 60% over the past decade.
An Garda Síochána told Upfront there was a "significant increase in knife seizures" from 1,362 in 2015 to 2,157 in 2024.
The force said his is primarily because of Operation Soteria, a strategy focused on the prevention of assaults and associated crimes - including knife crime - which has been in place since 2019.
Broadly speaking, Ms Blair said she supports giving gardaí greater stop and search powers to tackle knife crime — but she believes the real problem lies in what happens after arrests are made.
"I think the guards are doing a pretty good job, to be fair, but they're bringing these people to court and then the judges... they're letting them out and (giving them) suspended sentences and giving them a little tap on the wrist.
"The guards are just blue in the face, the ones I've been talking to, (with) the amount of paperwork that goes into all the work they do to try to bring these people to court."
'Do the living for him'
Ms Blair said her focus now – along with her husband Noel and Cameron’s younger brother Alan - is on honouring Cameron’s memory and living the kind of life he dreamed of.
"Cameron had a wish list when he was maybe I think he was 10 or 11 when he wrote this wish list, we found it after," she said.
"I was looking down through the list and the list was lovely."
She said among items on the wish list were to learn to drive and do a skydive and "live to be 100".
"Every time I read that I kind of go, ‘You know what, his life was so robbed’ - but I'm going to try to, in his memory, do a lot of the things that he had on his list.
"He had lot of them ticked off but there was more to come.
"All three of us are going to try to do the living for him because he packed in an awful lot into his 20 years."
‘His room is the exact same’
As she works to honour Cameron’s memory, Ms Blair said she still finds it difficult to change anything in the room he left behind.
"His room is the exact same, I can't touch it. His book is still on his locker, his phone is there, there's his bank card and just everything - so I remember Cameron just like this was yesterday," she said.
"His clothes are still in his wash basket from that morning, the work clothes - I just can't even bring myself to wash them.
"Everything is as it is.
"This sounds stupid, but his gum shields from rugby - I kept them. They're all here.
"Thankfully, one thing I kept over the years was a souvenir box and I kept all my Mother's Day cards from the lads when they were small."
Ms Blair said that she still puts up Mother’s Day cards Cameron gave her in previous years, alongside those from his brother Alan.
"Even now I'm looking over on my windowsill and I have two Mothers Day cards up there.
"I'll always be the mother of two boys, and nobody will ever take that away from me."
Anyone affected by issues raised in this article can go to rte.ie/helplines.
Listen to Kathy Blair speaking to Katie Hannon on Upfront: The Podcast here, on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify.
Watch Upfront with Katie Hannon on Monday at 9.35pm on RTÉ One and the RTÉ Player.
