Sixty people who have gone missing since the start of last year have still not been found.
Shocking figures show cases of 4,264 people were reported to gardai in 2022 with 36 remaining unaccounted for.
As of April 11, some 1,377 people have vanished this year – and 24 are still missing.
READ MORE: Huge concern as gardai begin search for missing man, 81, in Dublin
In total, there are 856 open missing persons’ cases in the State, some dating back many decades.
They include 27-year-old American Annie McCarrick, who vanished from South Dublin in March 1993.
Gardai are now probing whether two brothers were involved in her murder. The longest missing person’s case involves teenager Jimmy O’Neill, who vanished without trace over 75 years ago.
The 16-year-old lived in Waterford city and worked for a shipping company that operated between Waterford and Liverpool. But on December 15, 1947, he disappeared and has not been heard from since.
His younger brother, Frank, has told the Irish Mirror: “He had a half-day on the Monday and never came home, and apparently my mother had the dinner and all ready for him. It’s my gut feeling he stowed away that Monday night, and needed help to leave.”
Frank says his brother’s disappearance devastated his family.
He said: “It broke both my parents’ hearts – it killed them in the long run. It shortened their lives, because even on my mother’s deathbed, a lady who was in the ward with my mother said to me: ‘Who’s Jimmy?’ I said, ‘That’s my brother who went missing’ and she said, ‘That’s who your mother was crying for all night’.”
If Jimmy was alive now, he would be 91. Last December Frank decided to have his brother’s name engraved on his family’s headstone in Waterford.
Frank, who was only four when Jimmy vanished, said: “The simple reason why I decided to put his name on the headstone was, he was gone at this stage 75 years. Now that’s a long time. I did that because, if I go out of this world myself, I would like my brother to be remembered.
“On the headstone, I engraved a simple message: ‘Jimmy O’Neill – missing from home, but never forgotten’.”
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