Seven members of an elite Swedish army unit are due to arrive in Kerry today to help in the search for their former colleague, Mr Olaf Jansen, who has been missing on local mountains for the last two weeks.
His father, Mr Sven Jansen, said yesterday his son's former army colleagues, including his commanding officer, would know the way he was thinking.
"They know the way he is trained and would know which way he would go," he said. "Unfortunately he did not tell which route he was going to take.
"According to his army commander there is a small chance he is still alive. If anyone can survive, he can."
Mr Jansen said he was still hopeful that Olaf (23), who had had practised survival techniques at sub-zero temperatures, might still be alive.
He added that he was disappointed that the Government had not called out the Army to search for his son. This would be the normal practice in Sweden, he said.
Olaf set out on Tuesday December 29th and sent a text message at 7 p.m. saying he was at the top of Mangerton Mountain at the edge of the Killarney National Park. He said he intended to head to Carrauntoohil in the Macgillycuddy's Reeks.
He accessed his voice mail at 2.40 a.m. He did not reveal his intended route, but it is believed he set off walking in the moonlight. The alarm was raised on Thursday evening.
Search-and-rescue teams from all over Ireland led by Kerry Mountain Rescue, along with dog teams from Wales and the search and rescue helicopter, conducted an intensive four-day search of a broad area between Mangerton Mountain and Carrauntoohil but failed to find him. Up to 180 people were involved.
Killarney gardaí are treating the case as that of a missing person. They believe he is still on the mountain, but that there is little chance he is alive.
Sgt Tom Tobin said that everything that could be done had been done. Water Rescue and the Shannon Marine rescue helicopter would conduct further searches next weekend.
Efforts had been hampered by the bad weather and dangerous conditions over the past two weeks. It was not the practice to call out the Army for mountain searches, Sgt Tobin said, and it had to be remembered that the highly professional marine rescue helicopter team was a rescue helicopter, involved in searches for survivors.
However, they had been extremely co-operative and were likely to conduct further searches for Mr Jansen.
Mr Christy McCarthy, spokesman for Kerry Mountain Rescue, said officially the search had been called off. However efforts were continuing unofficially.
"It is the biggest thought in all our hearts to find him," Mr McCarthy said. Local hill-walking clubs this weekend were also to look for Mr Jansen and water rescue teams were also to search, he said.
Mr Jansen (57), a port intendent (supervisor) at the docks in Gothenburg, arrived in Kerry a week ago.
He said he was extremely grateful to all the people who searched for his son but wanted a full-scale Army search and the helicopter search to continue.
Olaf, the second eldest of five boys, had spent 15 months with the elite special forces unit of the Swedish army and had also served in Kosovo with Kfor forces for six months.
Mr Jansen ruled out any chance his son deliberately disappeared. Now studying economics in Aberdeen, he had achieved top marks at school. Recently married to a Kilgarvan woman, he loved his wife Miriam, his father said, and he was extremely close to his older brother Karl.