The decision to launch a new search for missing Dublin teenager Philip Cairns last week did not come as a result of fresh information received by gardaí investigating the 23 year-old case.

The Sunday Tribune understands that the excavation of part of the Grange Golf Club in Rathfarnham, south Dublin, related to information received in 1986 when the 13-year-old first disappeared.

At the time, a woman was involved in a relationship with a local man whom gardaí regarded as a potential suspect. The man allegedly confessed to murdering the youngster and told his girlfriend where he was buried.

The woman approached her priest who convinced her to go to gardaí and tell them what she knew.

She did this and a search of the same lands, near the 13th tee, was carried out with no success in the months following Philip's disappearance.

Gardaí at Rathfarnham have been involved in an ongoing review of the evidence in the case and decided to search again the area to make sure that no evidence was originally overlooked.

Detectives involved in last week's search privately concede they did not expect to find the missing boy's body and that the excavation operation was merely a matter of procedure.

It is understood that Philip's parents, Alice and Philip snr, as well as their son and four daughters, were kept in­formed of developments and the reason for the dig.

The man who originally bragged of his involvement is now a pensioner living in Rathfarnham and there is nothing to implicate him in the crime. Indeed, there are no real suspects in the case, which is unlikely to be ever solved.