Missing persons helpline – Government must restore vital funding

IT is more than 20 months since the Department of Justice withdrew funding from Ireland’s national missing persons helpline, run by Victim Support, but there has been no sign of a replacement service.

Instead the Department adopted the usual bureaucratic temporising tactic of setting up a committee, or in this case, the Commission for the Support of Victims of Crime, which has invited organisations to submit requests for funding of various projects.

The figures for the last full year for which statistics are available indicate that 5,997 people were reported missing in 2005.