PEOPLE have been asked to check regularly on elderly neighbours following the discovery that two elderly sisters found dead at the weekend may have died almost three weeks ago.
Ms Mary Gertrude O'Brien (79), and her sister Ellen (75), were found in their home at Upper Cork Street, Mitchelstown, Co Cork, by gardai at the weekend.
The assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster, who carried out postmortem examinations, has yet to file a full report, but it is understood gardai are satisfied both women died of natural causes.
The two sisters, who lived reclusive lives, had not been seen for more than two weeks at their two storey terraced home on the Cork Dublin Road where they had run a small shop until the mid 1980s.
The alarm was raised by a concerned neighbour on Saturday evening and gardai forced their way into the house where they found the bodies of the two women.
One of the sisters had collapsed on the floor of the kitchen while the other appeared to have died in a chair in an adjoining living room.
According to one local, the two sisters were private people with only Gertrude going out to shop. A relative checked on them each week but they often did not answer calls to the door.
Locals have expressed horror that the two women died on their own, apparently unable to summon help. The Southern Health Board chairman, Mr John Dennehy, has called for an investigation to ensure there are no repeats of such a tragedy.
"It's horrific that two sisters could die in the middle of a built up town like Mitchelstown and go unnoticed for days. It's a warning to all of us that we need to keep an eye out for our senior citizens," he said.
"If everybody adopted somebody to keep an eye on, it would be easy to do the job. There are about 65,000 people over the age of 65 in the Southern Health Board region not all of them need extra care but a fraction do and they're entitled to it."
The two women were buried yesterday morning at Mitchelstown's new cemetery following Requiem Mass at the Church of Mary Conceived without Sin.