Laois Civil Defence drone teams assisted in the multi-agency search  Birr, Co Offaly

6 May 2026

 4 May 2026

Laois Civil Defence drone teams were activated  to Co Offaly to help find a missing person over the May Bank Holiday weekend. The teams were called out to assist in the multi-agency search operation near Birr in Co Offaly on Monday night. Offaly Civil Defence requested the assistance of drone operators and volunteers from Laois Civil Defence to assist in the search.

The search operation included members of An Garda Síochána, the Rescue 115 helicopter from Shannon and a number of search dogs from SARDA(Search And Rescue Dogs Association).

Laois Civil Defence Officer, Damien Dollard stated that “at 20:32 on Monday night Laois Civil Defence received a request to assist Offaly Civil Defence with the provision of drone and search teams to assist with an ongoing search for a missing person near Birr, Co Offaly. Six volunteer search responders including two drone operators responded to the scene and aided until the early hours Tuesday morning.  The missing person was located a number of hours into the search safe and well by local search teams.,”.

Offaly Civil Defence stated in an online post that “thankfully shortly after 3am the missing person was located approximately 1.5 km from her home by the dedicated search teams  and the local community and family members were extremely grateful  when the good news was conveyed to the family.”

The Leinster Express/Laois Live asked Laois Civil Defence’s Damien Dollard about the drones being used by Laois Civil Defence.

“All our drones have thermal imaging capabilities including search lights and we have been utilising drones here in Laois to assist our operations since 2013,” Mr Dollard explained.

“Over the years Civil Defence units across the country have been utilising drones to assist the principal response agencies with a variety of operations including assisting Gardaí on missing person searches and assisting the Local Authorities with their response and planning for flooding emergencies,” Mr Dollard added.

He said “Civil Defence have units in every local authority across the country and if people are interested in joining, they can visit www.civildefence.ie to find details on their local unit.”

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