The Dullard family has never lost hope the remains of Jo Jo Dullard will be found, a priest who is a close friend of the family has said in light of a new search.Even the slightest indication she might be found gives the family immense hope, Fr Willie Purcell told RTÉ Radio’s Today with David McCullagh show. His comments come as gardaí began a new search for the remains of Deirdre Jacob and Dullard in Co Wicklow on Monday.An Garda Síochána told The Irish Times on Tuesday that searches remain “ongoing”.The two women were abducted and murdered in the 1990s, and gardaí have returned to work on a site in Co Wicklow where excavations were carried out earlier this year.There had been many searches over the years, but the Dullard family, like the family of Deirdre Jacobs, never lost hope, “because even the smallest piece of information keeps them going”, Purcell said. The priest said he was humbled every time he spoke with Dullard’s sister Kathleen and the rest of the family “because of their strength and their courage and their faith in keeping the story of Jo Jo alive and never losing a sense that Jo Jo will be found”, he said.“Somebody out there has information,” Purcell said, noting that “even the smallest amount of information” could help to “bring the whole story together and will bring Jo Jo home”.Dullard (21) was last seen on November 9th, 1995, while on her way home to Callan, Co Kilkenny, after socialising in Bruxelles bar off Dublin’s Grafton Street.She called a friend from a phone box in Moone, Co Kildare, at 11.37pm, telling her a driver had stopped and she was going to take a lift. She was never seen again.When asked what would it mean to the family to bring Dullard home, Purcell said: “Well, I suppose for Jo Jo’s family, and again, for Deirdre’s family, and indeed for all missing persons throughout the country, it’s just to be able to lay her to rest with her family.The site of a search operation in a quarry on the Wicklow-Kildare border. Photograph Nick Bradshaw “It’s to have a place to go where now her family knows she’s safe.”For the family, he said, “all they want to do is just to have her home. All they want to do is just to be able to gather around a place where they can say: ‘Jo Jo, for 30 years, we’ve searched for you, and now you’re safe.’”The search that began this week was giving the family a renewed sense of the possibility that this will bring closure, he added.“And for them, that’s why they never lose hope, because if you lose hope, you lose everything. If you lose hope, you lose the person.“So again, talking to Kathleen yesterday, and Kathleen very beautifully said: ‘By keeping this hope alive, we’re keeping Jo Jo alive in our hearts. And by never losing sight of Jo Jo, and by constantly hoping that Jo Jo will come back, then she’s not lost. She’s not missing.’”The Garda search team is acting on intelligence that murder suspect and convicted rapist Larry Murphy was involved in suspicious activity at the site around the time Deirdre Jacob vanished in Co Kildare in July 1998.Jacob was 18 when she disappeared shortly after 3pm on July 28th, 1998, near her family home at Roseberry, Newbridge.A student teacher based in London, she was home for summer and was walking towards her home, having earlier been in Newbridge, when she vanished.The Serious Crime Review Team, within the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, is leading the operation.