A request to An Post to print stamps of Fiona Pender, the Tullamore woman who has been missing for five years, was rejected by the company.
However, Ms Pender's close friend of many years, Ms Emer Condron, is proceeding with a plan to raise awareness of one of the most perplexing cases of its kind in recent years.
Ms Condron, who said Fiona Pender was one of the most beautiful people she had ever met, has introduced an envelope with details of Fiona, in the hope it may jog the memory of someone who may know something about the case.
"I wanted to keep the case in the foreground and I first asked An Post if there was any way they could print stamps of Fiona so her face would be seen by virtually everyone in the country," she said during the week.
"When they refused I approached a company in Kilkenny and put together the next best thing, an envelope which carries a printed description of Fiona and the facts surrounding her disappearance.
"The envelopes are for residential or private use and they cost £1 for a bundle of 25. The money they raise will be spent on buying more so we can keep the issue of her disappearance alive," she said.
Ms Condron said that since the envelopes had been offered to the public, there had been a great demand for them in Tullamore and the surrounding area. More were being printed.
The envelopes can be obtained from Ms Condron or Ms Olive Cuskelly at Absolute Design, Tullamore, or from Mary Murphy Office Supplies, Henry Street, Tullamore.
"When Fiona's father died some months ago I had a hope that had she been alive she would have turned up. She did not, but there is always the hope," said Ms Condron.
"No one can possibly understand how much a family suffers when someone goes missing, and my heart goes out to all of them. They are in a terrible limbo," she said.
She is hoping to have a picture of her friend printed on the next batch of envelopes and that something may come from this new initiative.
Detectives working on the case praised Ms Condron for her initiative and said it may help in their investigation. Ms Pender, a hairdresser, was 25 when she disappeared on August 22nd, 1996, from the flat she shared with her boyfriend in Tullamore.
The blond, blue-eyed missing woman, who was 5 ft 5 ins, was 71/2 months pregnant when she went missing. The Garda file on her disappearance is still open at Tullamore Garda station, which can be contacted at 0506-21305 or on a confidential freephone line, 1800-666111.