Cork search and rescue volunteers in need of permanent home

Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery has appealed to Cork City Council to meet with them so they can arrange a lease for a permanent home

A multi-agency search and rescue operation in which Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery took part. The group is seeking a permanent city home. File Picture: Andy Gibson

After 20 years without a permanent home, Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery volunteers have called on Cork City Council to lease them a premises on one of the derelict sites the council owns.

“When we’re searching for a missing person, their poor families are often watching and waiting on the riverbank,” Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery (CCMPSAR) treasurer Chris O’Donovan told the Irish Examiner. 

“We’d love to be able to offer them a place to have a cup of tea in a bit of comfort.” 

The group has 12 volunteers and regularly responds to garda and coastguard callouts. Mr O’Donovan stressed that any potential site need not be beside the river, so long as it is relatively central, adding that the volunteers “want nothing for nothing” and would lease the site from the council.

“It would be a win-win, with the council gaining a paying tenant, and us gaining a place we could store our equipment, a place we could bring families, and a place we could have a shower after spending 12 hours out on the water,” Mr O’Donovan said.

In May, using recently purchased sonar equipment, CCMPSAR divers were instrumental in the recovery of a car submerged in Crosshaven harbour, and that car was later found to contain the remains of Barry Coughlan, a 23-year-old man missing since 2004.

In 20 years of volunteering, CCMPSAR has reunited many families with their loved ones, often helping to bring peace and closure in the most tragic of circumstances. Over the past three weeks, the group has participated in successful searches which resulted in the safe recovery of three separate people missing from their homes.

Mr O’Donovan said volunteers are very grateful to be currently based in a shed in the Marina Commercial Park, a premises without running water, but they are unable to store their equipment there, and without a permanent address, the registered charity cannot get Lottery funding or Government grants.  With the help of anti-dereliction activists Jude Sherry and Frank O’Connor, CCMPSAR believe they have identified three potential sites for a premises, and are calling on Cork City Council to meet with them.

Thomas Gould, Sinn Féin TD for Cork North Central, said he has made representations to Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath and to Cork City Council on behalf of CCMPSAR.

“It is time for a permanent building for Cork City Missing Persons Search and Recovery,” Deputy Gould said. “It’s about time they’re shown the respect they deserve.”