The Department of Justice has published a second report containing information on unidentified human remains provided by coroners around the country.

The first report was published last year, after the department asked coroners to return updated details of any unidentified remains for their districts as part of their annual statutory returns to the Minister for Justice.

It is hoped that the information may help in identifying remains. The database can be found at www.coroners.ie.

Distinctive items

Visual records – including facial images and visuals of items found with remains – have been included, where provided by coroners, for the first time.

Coroners were asked to include in their 2023 return visuals of any distinctive items, such as jewellery, clothing, or tattoos, that were found with or on the unidentified remains.

The database now contains details of 26 unidentified full remains, 20 unidentified partial remains, and 16 historical remains.

DNA samples

The new visual records included in the database are:

• Imagery of clothing found on male remains recovered from the River Liffey at North Wall Quay, Dublin, on 20 May 1982,
• Imagery of clothing found on female remains recovered at Ballinamona, Kilmuckridge, Gorey, Co Wexford, on 12 December 1995,
• Craniofacial reconstruction with computer-generated image of the deceased’s face, male found at the base of the Cliffs of Moher on 30 July 2010,
• Facial image of female remains recovered from the River Liffey at Breakwater Road, Alexandra Basin, on 10 January 1990, and
• Facial image of male remains found at Rosses Point, Sligo, on 16 June 2009 and CCTV still.

The Department of Justice said that it remained committed to working with gardaí, coroners, and Forensic Science Ireland to facilitate the exhumation of remains to enable DNA samples to be taken and uploaded to the National DNA Database.