Sisters make appeal in Holland to find missing Mayo man

Two sisters of an Irishman missing in the Netherlands since 2008 have travelled to the Dutch town of Breda to make an emotional plea for help in finding their brother.

James Patrick Grealis, originally from Achill Island, Co Mayo, vanished in Breda in October 2008.

His sisters Helen and Caroline travelled to Holland to reawaken public awareness of the case. They say they have been frustrated by a lack of action by authorities.

Speaking to journalist Hessel de Ree of BN De Stem newspaper, the sisters said that they find it "very hard to believe" that they have had no contact from their brother, as he was close with his family.

"We are here again because we are not going to give up. He is missing 10 years, and although we have done a lot in those 10 years, and we have tried to find him, we still have no answers and there are still a lot of unknowns," said Helen, alongside her sister in an emotional video plea.

"We have spent a lot of time out here actively trying to stick up posters, gain attention, do media work. We worked with the police but they weren’t involved that actively from the beginning. Over the years, we fought with the police to try and get an active investigation, we set up a reward to try and get information."

The family also took the police in Breda to the local civil court, but lost the case due to a lack of evidence that a crime was ever committed. They claim that an initial investigation, to find out if a crime had taken place, was not carried out.

"He was looking for work because he had been unemployed since the Friday before he went missing. He was laid off on the 17th of October. He was actively looking for work, and that shows from his phone records and from the people we spoke with. He also was in touch with my parents at home, and he seemed in good form, there was nothing strange going on," said Helen.

"It’s a long 10 years to live in this torment of not knowing, and suffering, and we want it to end. Unfortunately we feel that our brother is no longer alive, and somebody must know something to help us find out what happened him, so we can bring him home from this country and we can bring him back to Ireland."