A woman who has been missing from her home in Waterford for more than a week made a complaint to gardaí last month about an incident involving a person known to her.
Margaret (Meg) Walsh (35), Ballinakill Downs, Waterford, was accompanied by a female friend when she made the complaint at Waterford Garda station some weeks ago.
Ms Walsh did not want gardaí to take any action over the incident but said she wanted to have the matter recorded by gardaí in the event of any further incidents involving the same person, The Irish Times understands.
It is understood that gardaí have spoken to the person identified by Ms Walsh in her complaint in the course of their inquiries into her disappearance.
While gardaí are still officially treating Ms Walsh's disappearance as a missing person case, they are privately very concerned about her and are drafting in large numbers of additional gardaí.
Today, Garda divisional search teams from Wexford and Tipperary will join the search team from Waterford, with up to 80 uniformed and plainclothes officers involved.
Ms Walsh has not been seen since she left the Woodlands Hotel on Dunmore East Road in Waterford in the early of hours of October 1st to return to her home in nearby Ballinakill Downs.
Last night, a Garda spokesman appealed to farmers to check any land they have adjoining roads in the area.
A Garda forensic specialist yesterday searched some recently disturbed earth in woodland at Ballinakill, near where Ms Walsh lived with her husband, but nothing was found.
The area of disturbed earth had been cordoned off late on Sunday night after its discovery by a Garda search team. A Garda dog unit continued with searches of the general area including land between Ballinakill Downs and the Suir estuary less than 800 metres to the north, while Garda search teams also carried out searches around Ardkeen Regional Hospital.
Garda divers carried out a number of sweeps of the River Suir, while the Garda helicopter, fitted with heat-sensing equipment, has also helped in the search for the missing woman.
Garda sources say they face a difficulty in that they have a huge area of ground to cover and few pointers to enable them to narrow the focus of their search.
Ms Walsh's silver Mitsubishi Carisma car was found in the car park of the former Uluru pub near the entrance to Ardkeen Regional Hospital at about 1.30am on Wednesday morning and was later removed to Dublin for examination by Garda technical experts.
Gardaí also recovered a mat from the car with a blood stain on it which was thrown into a nearby field, and this was also sent to Dublin for forensic examination.
Gardaí are awaiting the results of both technical examinations.
They have also obtained a huge quantity of CCTV footage from commercial premises along the Dunmore East Road and are currently reviewing it.
Ms Walsh worked as a secretary with construction company Meadow Court Homes.