Gardaí investigating the disappearance of 11-year-old Robert Holohan will begin supervising the draining of a number of slurry pits after his parents issued an appeal to people yesterday to search their premises in case he may be lying injured somewhere.
Naval divers are to continue a search of the Owenacurra river up to Lisgoold.
Gardaí say they still have an open mind on what could have happened to Robert and while there is no evidence to suggest he was abducted, they cannot rule such a possibility out of their inquiries.
Yesterday a massive search operation saw up to 1,200 volunteers comb approximately ten square miles around Robert's home at Ballyedmond two miles north of Midleton town, but it failed to turn up any clues as to the young boy's disappearance.
"It's baffling, to be honest," said Supt Liam Hayes, as he admitted that gardaí were growing increasingly concerned. Robert was last night facing into his third night away from home following his disappearance on Tuesday afternoon.
His parents, Mark and Majella Holohan, spoke of their anguish since their son's disappearance and reiterated their appeal to anyone who may have any information to contact the gardaí.
" devastated. I can't describe it really. Robert is our eldest child and we love him very much and we're not sleeping, we're not eating, we just can't believe that it's happened. I can't think of anything else only Robert," said Ms Holohan.
"With the days going on, we're getting worried, we don't know. Maybe somebody took him. I'm afraid that he's fallen and hit his head. He just seems to have disappeared. We don't know what's happened to him. We're not sure, we're baffled now at this stage.
"I have hope but obviously the longer it's going on, the hope is fading. We thought the first day that he might just pop up, that he might have fallen asleep over in the hay with the horses or that he might have got a fall off his bike and been injured.
"We thought he would contact us then and come home or that the search party might have found him but the sniffer dogs have shown up nothing. It's baffling," Ms Holohan said in an RTÉ interview.
Robert's father, Mark, said: "I'm just asking everyone - all farmers, all business people - to search their premises, search your business, if anybody suspects anything about anybody, they've seen anything odd, we're grasping at anything here to get Robert back.
"He must be somewhere, somebody must know where Robert is. There's a massive search after going on here in east Cork and there's nothing from it. There's no sign of Robert but God is good and I'm just praying we get a story with a happy ending," he said.
Yesterday Robert's hero, Cork hurler Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, visited the family home and issued an appeal for anyone with any information about Robert to contact the gardaí.
