GARDAI in Cork said yesterday it could take up to three weeks to establish whether the body parts discovered last week in a shallow grave are those of Mr Patrick O'Driscoll, one of three men who disappeared from the city two years ago.
Yesterday, Chief Supt Adrian Culligan told The Irish Times that body parts, including a severed skull, severed limbs and a torso, had been recovered from the grave in a wooded area at Lotabeg on the eastern outskirts of the city.
A post mortem examination was carried out at the weekend by the assistant State pathologist, Dr Margaret Bolster, he added, but further DNA testing as well as dental charting would have to be completed before a positive identification could be made.
Chief Supt Culligan said the Garda team searching the densely wooded area had been hampered during the past two days because of bad weather but the search would resume today.
It was being conducted on a one acre plot of ground in the woods. Gardai are preparing to divide the plot into grids which will be searched systematically over the coming weeks.
If the body was positively identified as that of Mr O'Driscoll, it would be a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions to decide what action should then be taken, he said.
Recently, a murder trial in which Mr O'Driscoll was named as the victim was stopped in the High Court when the judge ruled that the defence had not been given due access to Garda statements.
Asked if the Garda authorities believed the bodies of the two other missing men, Mr Cathal O'Brien (23), of Wexford, and Mr Kevin Ball (42), an Englishman who had been living in Cork, were in the area, Chief Supt Culligan said a thorough search might provide the answer.
The area is being secured on a 24 hour basis. The discovery of the body parts, he continued, had "progressed the Garda investigation into the disappearances one step further".
The three missing men lived occasionally at the same address - 9 Wellington terrace, Cork - and knew each other well.
"The terrain at the search site is difficult, with a lot of roots and brush, but we will operate a systematic search until we are satisfied that there is nothing else there," Chief Supt Culligan said, adding that if other bodies were found, gardai would then decide what course of action to take.
Mr O'Driscoll went missing in December 1994. The other two men vanished in April of the same year. Each of them dropped out of sight without claiming social welfare entitlements.