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Searchers looking for missing teenager Elisha Gault have found a body in the river Suir about eight kilometres from where she was last seen alive over a week ago.

It’s understood that the search and rescue Coast Guard helicopter was on its way back to Waterford airport from a routine operation but crew members saw a body floating in the water near Fiddown bridge some time after 6pm on Sunday evening. The Coast Guard have been involved in the search throughout the last week.

Divers went to the scene and the body was recovered from low water along the edge of the Suir, about seven or eight kilometres from Carrick-on-Suir.

Identification of the body was not confirmed last night and the remains were brought by helicopter to University Hospital Waterford. It’s understood the remains are that of a female. The family of Elisha Gault have been informed of the discovery.

Fourteen-year-old Elisha Gault was last seen alive at about 10.15pm on St Patrick’s night on Dillon Bridge in Carrick-on-Suir, heading towards the Carrickbeg area on the Co Waterford side of the town.

Family and friends have made numerous appeals over the last week for information on her whereabouts, while appeals were made directly to Elisha herself to contact her family or gardaí if she was alive.

She was described as being between 5’10” and 6’ in height with blue eyes and dyed blonde hair.

Many state agencies and voluntary bodies were involved in searching the area around the Suir in and near Carrick since Sunday morning including the gardaí, civil defence, the Coast Guard, Carrick River Rescue, Waterford Marine Search and Rescue, Nenagh Search and Rescue, Mallow Search and Rescue, and others.

(Image: DYLAN VAUGHAN)

(Image: Dylan Vaughan)

A family friend said last night that he couldn’t confirm the identify of the body found but said if it is Elisha Gault, “it gives a bit of closure to the family”.

Elisha is a pupil of Comeragh College in Carrick. Her mother Grainne is originally from Belfast and the family lived for some time in Piltown, just over the Tipperary/Kilkenny border from Carrick-on-Suir, before moving to New Street in the town over a year ago.

Grainne Gault said on Friday on Facebook that the family were “broken-hearted” with no news of Elisha’s whereabouts.

“If you know of her whereabouts, tell her she isn’t in trouble, she won’t be forced to come home if she doesn’t want to, we just want to know she is safe and well and we can call off all the search efforts and myself, her daddy and her three sisters love her very much, no matter what,” she said.