The President, Mrs McAleese, has been urged to intervene in the Ken Bigley hostage crisis by appealing for his release. His brother, Mr Paul Bigley, appealed for help from the President last night, saying time was rapidly running out, writes Isabel Conway in Amsterdam.
It has also emerged that armed Dutch intelligence officers and a British official visited Mr Paul Bigley's home in the Netherlands demanding that he hand over names and addresses of contacts he is using during his fight to have his brother freed.
The contents of his computer were downloaded yesterday, it is understood.
At his home in the Netherlands yesterday Mr Bigley said: "Ireland is held in the most high regard throughout the Middle East. They have the warmest of relations with countries like Jordan. Please, President McAleese, help us to get our beloved brother out." Contact between Ireland and Jordan could be very useful, he said.
"If this gracious and highly regarded stateswoman were to go on the Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera asking for Ken to be returned to his family it could help greatly," he added.
He said the family was still hopeful that he would be delivered back to them alive but admitted: "He has probably outlived his usefulness as a propaganda tool so now it is a case of what happens next.
"There is an awesome silence," Mr Bigley added. "We have heard absolutely nothing."
On Wednesday further harrowing video footage of his brother, caged and looking "ill and distraught", was shown.
His mother, Mrs Lil Bigley (86), who comes from Ticknock near Stepaside, Co Dublin, and who has a serious heart condition, has not seen the video. "She is still very poorly in hospital, and the family is determined to spare her further agony," Mr Bigley said.
Meanwhile, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Ahern, was yesterday urged to contact his counterpart in Jordan. The call came from Labour's foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Michael D. Higgins, who has stayed in daily contact with Mr Bigley in the Netherlands.
In a letter hand-delivered to Iveagh House yesterday evening, Mr Higgins congratulated Mr Ahern on his new position and asked him to intervene on behalf of the Bigley family.
The involvement of Jordan in 1991 in helping to bring about the release of 250 Irish citizens held at al-Bitar hospital in Baghdad was crucial, said Mr Higgins, who had intervened with former foreign affairs minister, Mr David Andrews, and other parliamentarians.
Now it was time to draw on the warm relations existing between Ireland and Jordan and to make this contact as a "matter of urgency".