LAST UPDATE | 2 Sep

IN THE BUILT up apartment complex just next to Donabate train station, The Gallery, residents are learning the news that gardaí are searching for a little boy who they believe to be deceased, who last lived there.

The boy, who would now be aged seven, has not been seen for years. This was the last place he’s known to have lived. 

Concerns for the boy were raised by child and family agency Tusla, and were reported to gardaí last Friday.

Searches connected to the investigation have been ongoing today and are expected to continue throughout the week.

One woman who has lived in the apartment complex for a few years, who learned of the news yesterday, said today that Gardaí have spoken to some of the residents, and that there is a general sense of shock amongst them.

“It’s a very quiet area, no one I have spoken to knew anything about this before the last few days,” she told The Journal. 

“We have a group chat of residents and we are just checking in with each other, to make sure people are okay.

An older woman who has lived in The Gallery for the last eight years said that she has never seen a child matching the few descriptors that have been reported about the boy that Gardaí believe is deceased.

“Everyone more or less keeps to themselves. I have been trying to think If I remember anything, but I honestly don’t know, it doesn’t seem like something that could have happened here,” she said.

Another man who lives alone, in the apartment block which gardaí sealed off and searched over the weekend, said that he was in the same position.

“A young garda interviewed me, but I have no knowledge. It’s terrible, I didn’t quite understand, I still don’t really understand it because, how could he disappear? And no one here noticed?”

“People have been chatting amongst themselves here about it because it’s all over the news, but no one knows what to say.”

Local Priest Augustine Fokchet said that people in the area are “truly shocked” in the wake of the news.

“People feel confused and sad, most of those I have spoken with are just finding it unbelievable that a young lad disappeared and there was no news about it, nobody knew.

“At this stage it is just shocking, that is the right word for it: shocking. In the next few days we will come together, people will start to come through and talk about how they are feeling,” he said.

The search site in Donabate. RollingNews.ie RollingNews.ie

A community gathering is set to take place tonight to show support for the boy.

A local organiser of the event said the gathering will be held on Donabate village green at 8pm following “enormous community concern” over the tragic news.

The event organiser encouraged locals to bring a candle to the village green tonight to show support for the child.