The brother of Trevor Deely has said that "big breakthroughs" in relation to the CCTV footage from the last sightings of him have allayed fears they had that he was being followed.
Speaking to RTÉ News ahead of the 23rd anniversary of his brother's disappearance on Friday, Mark Deely said that the footage has been "cleaned up" and they were "fairly certain that there is nothing sinister, he is not being followed".
Trevor Deely was last seen on CCTV passing the Bank of Ireland ATM on Haddington Road in Dublin at approximately 4.14am on 8 December 2000.
Gardaí had appealed for information about a "male dressed in black" who appeared in the video.
Mr Deely said that the footage leant itself "towards a sense of dread about a guy that was walking down behind him", but that the man has been located and interviewed and is no longer a person of interest.
"That's been all cleaned up, he's been identified, he's been spoken to, there is nothing sinister there," Mr Deely said.
He said the family had not given up hope.
"The truth is we do not have any information as to whether he is dead or whether he is alive and so we'll always keep an open mind until we find definite proof of one thing or the other," Mr Deely said.
He was speaking as the families of long-term missing persons gathered to mark National Missing Persons' Day.
Gerry Keenan, the brother of Imelda Keenan who disappeared in Waterford 30 years ago next month, was applauded as he lit 'the candle of hope' during the event at Croke Park in Dublin.
Among those to address the event were Michael Jacob, father of Deirdre Jacob, who disappeared in Newbridge in Co Kildare on 28 July 1998, and Kathleen Bergin, sister of Jojo Dullard, who went missing on 9 November 1995.
There was also a focus on those who have gone missing abroad, with Rita Mooney speaking about the disappearance of her brother in Australia in 1996 and a recorded message sent from Leona Tighe on the disappearance of her sister Jeanne in July 2020 while in Portugal.
Addressing those gathered, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris described it as a day "to hold on to hope".
Both he and Minister of State at the Department of Justice James Browne renewed their appeals to families to provide DNA samples to the National DNA database.
So far this year, 4,112 people were reported missing and 85 remain missing.
'All we want is closure'
Mr Browne said that 900 long-term missing people was "a very large number" and said that "we need to do an awful lot more".
He pointed to the publication in May of the Unidentified Remains Database, which was compiled following an analysis of coroners records.
The minister said that this database now comprises of 45 records and described it as "a positive first step, but it is only the first".
"We are committed to exploring how we can improve the database," Mr Browne said.
"These improvements may be through the inclusion of appropriate images and more detailed information, if available."
During his speech, Mr Jacob welcomed the minister's comments.
He said the issue of unidentified remains were of particular concern to the families of those who were missing a long time.
"You can't blame us for thinking, is the remains of our loved ones, one of these unidentified ones," Mr Jacob said.
He invited Mr Browne to meet a group of concerned families to discuss it.
