Missing people support groups say there is huge demand for the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell to reinstate the national missing person's helpline.

FAMILIES and friends of more than 4,000 people who go missing every year believe the Government is ignoring their plea to re-establish a national missing persons’ helpline.

MANY presents are still lying unwrapped under the Christmas tree in homes around the country because their recipients are not around to open them.

DETECTIVES who headed the investigation into the missing British schoolgirls, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, have been asked to examine the case of disappeared Kilkenny woman, Jo Jo Dullard.

MISSING. This one word cannot describe the range of emotions it brings when it must be used to describe a family member or friend. And yet it is a word that describes hundreds of Irish people who for one reason or another, disappear from the lives of their loved ones without a trace.

FAMILIES and friends of the estimated 1,800 people who go missing here every year can now reach for the phone for help and support.