The trend has prompted renewed calls for the establishment of a national missing persons unit, with government backbencher John McGuinness reiterating his support for such a measure.

"Ireland needs to make a fresh start on solving missing person cases, " the Kilkenny Fianna Fail TD said this weekend. "A focused missing persons unit with specially-trained officers using the latest available techniques and expertise would give the issue the constant attention it requires."

Ireland registered another missing person last week when 31-year-old Yohan Verhoeven, who is Irish but of Dutch descent, disappeared from his home in Dublin. McGuinness said the gardai were not sufficiently equipped to handle missing person reports.

"The gardai are totally unequipped and there are just too many missing person cases unsolved, " he said. "The authorities are not giving the issue enough priority and should hang their heads in shame. It's outrageous that little or no effort is made by the government and guards to keep heightened public awareness on the issue. It should be advertised on milk cartons, in magazines, and on the radio."

Fr Aquinas Duffy, founder of the Missing Irish People website, www. missing. ws, has also urged the government to establish a missing persons unit.

"I strongly feel we need a unit whose only job would be to investigate and trace missing people, ensuring that cases don't get left gathering dust when officers are called away on other tasks, " said the priest, whose own nephew, Aengus Shanahan, has been missing from Limerick city since 2000.

"The gardai's missing persons bureau does a good job, but it's understaffed for the number of reports it has. We need the establishment of regional units with a headquarters co-ordination for it all."

However, superintendent Kevin Donohue of the Garda Press Office said the missing persons bureau, and gardai around the country, were fully equipped to handle missing person cases.

"We're happy that the service provided by the bureau and our district officers is adequate to co-ordinate efforts to locate missing persons.

Our system remains under constant review and if it needs to be adjusted it will be, but our techniques are appropriate and adequate at present, " he said.

Last year, Ireland's missing persons helpline was discontinued following the withdrawal of Department of Justice funding amid concerns about governance and accountability for public funds. The helpline was run by the Victim Support agency, providing advice and support to families of missing people.

Since then, the Missing In Ireland Support Service has applied for 71,600 to establish a helpline.

Funding of 25,000 was offered by the Commission for the Support of Victims of Crime but the sum was rejected as insufficient. Friends and families of missing Irish people currently depend on a British helpline for support.

"We need a new helpline run by counsellors to provide emotional support for those affected, " said Duffy. "It should be a liaison between families and gardai, with professional personnel running it."

Missing persons campaigner Mary Phelan, from Kilkenny, has been calling for a professionally-run missing persons unit since the disappearance of her sister, Jo Jo Dullard, in 1995.

Together with McGuinness, she has met with experts in New York and Washington who specialise in finding those who disappear.

Phelan is unhappy with the way gardai follow up cases of missing people, saying their techniques don't measure up to best international standards.

"My own experience with Jo Jo's case has told me that there's no specific training here whatsoever to deal with missing person reports, " she said.

"There's a lack of communication between garda stations when following up the cases. In other countries, daily television reports missing persons and the issue is prioritised. We have nothing like that here.

"We desperately need a missing persons unit to get out there and find our missing people. It would have to work closely with families, focus constantly on resolving cases, and catch the offenders. We need it to be here now and for the future."

REPORTING MISSING PERSONS IN GARDA

Siochana annual reports, missing persons are recorded under three categories. This method of reporting missing persons has been used since 2003; before that, reports were split into two categories: acceptable and unacceptable.

Missing persons are currently categorised as follows:

'Category A' covers reports requiring immediate action on the assumption that the missing person is at serious risk, such as child abduction or possible suicide threats.

'Category B' refers to persons who may have disappeared of their own volition and are assumed not to be at any immediate risk, such as persons who have a reason to leave or have left a note saying they do not plan on returning.

'Category C' includes reports where there is no apparant threat of danger to the missing person or the public, such as a person over 18 who has decided to start a new life.

Nationwide in 2005 there were: - 3,277 reports under Category A with 37 of the persons remaining untraced at year end.

- 1,559 reports under Category B with 21 people remaining untraced - 1,161 reports under Category C with 17 persons untraced.

The accumulated "gure saw a total of 75 persons untraced out of 5,997.