David Linehan remembers listening to a man on the radio making an appeal for information on his missing brother.
"I was getting my hair cut and I heard a local man, Cormac Cremin, talk about his missing brother Pearse on the radio.
"I sympathised with him but I could never have imagined that our family would be in a similar situation in a matter of months."
The Cork man's father, Thomas, went missing in January of this year and was found deceased by his eldest son in April. David said recovering his father's body was a relief for the family as it provided them with a form of closure.
"I was lucky enough to be able to go through the grieving process for my father.
"We were heartbroken when his remains were found but we were glad to find out something.
"So many people go for years without knowing what has happened to a loved one."
David recently set up a support network for families of missing persons to provide comfort and advice to people who are going through a harrowing experience.
Group members can call each other, day or night, to discuss their feelings of confusion, loss, and anxiety. Members include Cormac Cremin, whose 29-year-old brother Pearse went missing last year. Pearse is a well known tennis coach in Cork city who disappeared on October 31st.
David said he couldn't have made it through the pain of his loss without the assistance of Cormac and Dublin priest, Fr Aquinas Duffy, whose young cousin Aengus (Gussie) Shanahan was reported missing in Limerick last year.
"My conscience made me set up this support network for families of missing persons. Adequate counselling services just aren't there for people. "Do you put your grief and confusion on hold? Families are suffering without being assisted by the State."
Members of the support network are calling on the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, to set up special regional missing persons units to deal exclusively with missing persons cases.
This, the group members argue, would take the pressure off garda∅ by spreading out the missing persons workload.
An appeal has also been made to the Government to set up a special 24 hour help line whereby a missing person can call and pass on information to their family.
David Linehan can be contacted at (021) 4303120 after 6 p.m. daily or by e-mail at david@missing.ws
His mobile phone number is also switched on 24 hours a day at 086 321 4079.
The missing persons website can be accessed at www.missing.ws or contact Fr Aquinas Duffy at (01) - 4519638.