Ten months have passed since the Pace family was struck by tragedy. Yet so many months down the line, Miriam Pace’s husband and children are still waiting for the findings of a report four court-appointed experts were charged with writing up.

Almost a year has passed but the Pace family, like many others who have also witnessed tragedy, are still waiting for answers.

The mother of two was killed inside her own home when the building collapsed, likely as a result of construction works carried out next door. The family had already complained about the apparent danger that the gaping hole adjacent to their home was presenting, but the works were only halted once it was too late and a life had been lost, a family shattered.

Four people are facing charges over the fatal incident and we were promised a review of building regulations – rules that had only come into force a few months earlier. Despite all the talk, however, these new laws are still in the pipeline.

Miriam’s husband, Carmelo, had wished ten months ago that his wife’s death would at least serve as an eye-opener, that it would bring about the required change so that people would truly feel safe inside their own homes but, unfortunately, nothing has changed so far.

But this is not just about amending our construction regulations. It is also about giving much needed closure to grieving families.

The Pace family is not the only one waiting for answers. There are many other cases where inquiries were launched – as per procedure – but which have not yet been concluded.

It is the same situation for the families of the young Italian woman who was crushed under a cement truck while riding her motorcycle, the German teenager who fell off a cliff while riding his bicycle, the Dutchman who was found dead and robbed of his possessions on a St Julian’s beach after a night clubbing with his friends and the 22-year-old Maltese man who died outside a nightclub in San Gwann in 2017.

These unnecessary delays are really unfair on the affected families. While the result of an inquiry will not bring back their loved ones, it could at least provide some form of closure to them. But we know that magisterial inquires, headed by sitting magistrates who already have a heavy workload to deal with, sometimes take months or years … in some cases decades. The number of court experts is similarly limited, which means that they would have to work on multiple inquiries simultaneously, as well as other court cases and, in many instances, their own private practice.

In reality, no investigation should take this long. The necessary resources must be made available because the victims of these tragedies should be the topmost priority. It is already bad enough to lose a loved one to an accident or through someone’s negligent or criminal behaviour. But waiting for years to learn what caused their death only makes the tragedy more unbearable, and the time to heal unnecessarily longer.