A family member of Kyran Durnin reported him and his mother missing in August, just 24 hours after Tusla went to An Garda Síochána and officially flagged its concerns for the boy’s welfare.
The Irish Times understands the family member was aware Tusla was about to bring its concerns to the Garda and was advised to make a missing persons report to the force, outlining their concerns that Kyran and his mother, Dayla (24), had gone missing.
Tusla has said it alerted the Garda “to a significant concern” about Kyran in August. In reply to queries, the Garda has now confirmed it was alerted by Tusla on August 29th and the missing persons report was made the following day.
It was claimed in the missing persons report that the mother and son were last seen at their home in Drogheda, Co Louth, at about 11pm on August 28th. Their absence, the report claimed, was not discovered until the following morning.
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That means the missing persons report claims the mother and son left Drogheda a matter of hours before the family learned Tusla was about to flag its concerns to the Garda about Kyran’s welfare.
“An Garda Síochána’s sole focus is on establishing where Kyran is,” Garda headquarters said in reply to a query, also confirming the August 29th date of the first Tusla notification and the missing persons report “made by a family member” the following day.
“Since then, the Garda investigation has established a number of key facts in relation to Kyran and his last known location as laid out in our public appeal,” the Garda said.
The Garda are continuing to “appeal to anyone with any information, no matter how small they think it may be, to contact us” and the force is also working “very closely with Tusla and other parties in our ongoing investigation”.
Tusla had been dealing with Kyran and his family in the period up to his disappearance but he was not in the care of the State.
Gardaí suspect he may have died in 2022 when he was aged six.
News of the timeline, and the rapid chain of events over two days in August, despite no independent confirmed sighting of Kyran for over two years, comes as gardaí continue to search a property in Dundalk. The Durnin family lived in the house, on Emer Terrace, until May of this year.
Gardaí have carried out a thorough search and technical tests inside the property since taking possession of it on Monday. The back garden of the property has also been excavated, using diggers, in what is a search for evidence and human remains.
The Garda search team moved diggers into a green area at the back of the terrace, where excavations were due to continue on Thursday.
Speaking at a Health Management Institute of Ireland conference on Wednesday, Kate Duggan, the chief executive of Tusla, said it was “a very extreme case, a very complex case”.
She said “we’ll find who’s accountable” but added there were “frontline social workers today trying to hold that case and trying to hold that family, and trying to hold each other. It puts us ... in a very challenging environment”.
It was confirmed by the Garda last week the investigation into what happened to Kyran had been upgraded to a murder inquiry, with the missing persons inquiry stood down. The boy’s mother has been located in the UK.
The Garda said last week, despite an investigation since August, it had been “unable to either locate Kyran, identify any information on his current whereabouts or any evidence that he is currently alive”.
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