Two days of anxiety and uncertainty for the families of four teenagers missing from a Waterford housing estate ended last night when they were located near Glasgow and taken into the care of Scottish police.
The four, who were said to have been lured away from their homes by a promise of highly-paid work in Germany, are expected to travel home today.
An international police alert had been mounted for the missing teenagers, and ports on both sides of the Irish Sea were on watch for them.
The distraught mothers of the four, who are aged from 15 to 19 years, and all from Clonard Park in Ballybeg, said earlier yesterday they feared for the safety of their sons, who did not inform relatives before leaving.
They left home without packing any belongings, and without passports or money, soon after the driver of an English-registered car was seen talking to them on the estate last Tuesday evening.
There were widespread reports yesterday that other youths in the Waterford area had also been offered "contracts" for work abroad but had declined the offers.
Waterford gardai put an investigation team in place and notified British police and Interpol.
Gardai began investigating reports that a family of travellers known to be involved in freelance work laying tarmacadam could be linked to the disappearances.
Mrs Heather English, of Clonard Park, said her son, Michael (15), and the other three were good friends, living a few doors from each other. All four had jobs locally. Michael had just begun work with a Waterford butcher, and his first pay packet was due today.
Michael's sister, Bridget, said inquiries by the family had revealed that similar incidents had happened in the estate before.
Ms Patricia O'Neill, whose son, Michael (16), was among the missing, said he had been working as a trainee barman, but was on a day off on Tuesday. The other teenagers were Eamonn Hanrahan (17) and Lee Howard (19).
They finally telephoned home late yesterday afternoon and said they were in Scotland, on their way to Germany, and that they were in no danger and had left the State of their own free will.
Relatives rang back the number they had given, and their parents and a local garda persuaded them to abandon their escapade.
Two brothers of Michael English said they found out the circumstances of his disappearance after speaking to another youth in the area who said he had previously taken up an offer of work in Germany, having been promised £60 a day and accommodation in hotels.
This youth, who was unwilling to be named or interviewed, had told them he was smuggled to Britain via Belfast, covered in blankets in the back of a jeep. He was taken in the same way from Dover to Calais, and driven across France to Germany.
He and other Irish youths had lived in a caravan near sites where their "employer" had tarmacadam contract work, and they had been given about £30 a day. When their two-month "contract" was finished they were smuggled home in the same manner as they had travelled out.
Hearsay accounts indicate that Waterford youths who previously took up such job offers worked in Berlin and other German towns.
The missing youths are unusual in that they already had employment locally. Ballybeg is a concentrated area of marginalisation, with over 80 per cent of the population dependent on social welfare payments. It also has an extremely high proportion of younger age groups. About 60 per cent of the population is under 25 and about 43 per cent under 14.
By law, parental responsibility ends at 18 years of age. Under the Guardianship of Infants Act, 1964, as amended, a parent ceases to be a guardian when the child reaches 18. The only exception to this is if the child gets married between the ages of 16 and 18.