Gardaí were last night waiting to question a man in connection with the death of his two children after a nationwide search for them.

What initially looked like a single vehicle accident on a sunlit afternoon turned into something far more tragic within minutes of gardaí arriving at the scene outside Westport, Co Mayo.

Relatives were last night trying to comfort Kathleen Chada, the devastated mother of Eoghan, 10, and Ruairi, 5, whose bodies were discovered just hours after gardaí issued a major alert in a bid to establish their whereabouts.