Irish police end search at former family home of suspected murdered schoolboy

Irish police have ended their search at the former home of missing student and suspected murder victim Kyran Durnin.

Police said extensive searches of the property and adjoining land in Dundalk, Co Louth, had been completed.

Investigators said the search results were not released for “operational purposes.”

Gardai last week launched a murder investigation months after Kyran was reported missing with his mother.

The teen’s mother has been located, but investigators say Kyran’s whereabouts are unknown and he is now presumed dead.

Ireland’s police chief described the case as “extraordinary”, saying he had never seen such a case in his 40-year career.

He said investigators were pursuing the case “with full force and resources.”

Speaking to reporters in Dublin, Mr Harris said: “This is an extraordinary event.

“I’ve been a police officer for over 40 years and I’ve never seen anything like this.

“I can’t think of a similar set of circumstances and so there’s a particular element to it that’s hard to understand.

“But we also have work to do.

Mr Harris said he was first made aware of Kyran’s case in early September.

“This investigation started from the very beginning, that is, from 30 August, as a missing persons investigation, and then very quickly the suspicions of the garda officers were aroused, and at the beginning of September I was informed about this and I visited the investigation teams,” he said.

“Obviously we were very anxious to understand what happened to Kyran and where this investigation would take us.

“I don’t want to comment on what our next steps might be in terms of the search and what other investigative steps we want to take.

But you can be sure that it is fully sourced and continuing rapidly.

“Since last week, we have received a lot of information from the public that contains important information.

“We encourage anyone who knows anything to come forward.

Gardaí continued to appeal for information regarding the child’s disappearance.

“Do not ignore any information you may have,” they said in a statement.

“Please do not assume that the investigation team knows the information you have.

“Any information, no matter how trivial it may seem, would be welcomed by the investigation team.

“This information will be kept strictly confidential.”

Justice Minister Helen McEntee said the country was devastated by a young boy who had been missing for possibly two years and unknown to anyone, including the authorities.

“The death of any child is devastating and especially so where children are vulnerable and where a child serves in government agencies or works in our government services. We have a responsibility to do everything we can to protect them,” the Fine Gael minister said.

“If there was a failure, we need to understand what happened here and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

“If people need to be held accountable, that will happen too.

“The aim here is to find him, we don’t know where he is and gardaí are working hard to do that, to understand what happened and if people have to be held accountable that is what happens because there is no time, no expense, nothing is spared here.

“Every effort is being made to ensure we can identify where it is, the lessons that need to be learned here, and the changes that need to happen.”

It emerged that Tusla, the Department for Children and Families, said it raised a “significant concern” about the missing child to police in August.