Funds denied for DNA tests on recovered bones

Budgetary constraints are believed to be preventing DNA testing of bones found off the south-east coast which may have come from some of the fishermen lost when three trawlers sank in 2006 and 2007.

A skull and two separate femurs (thigh bones) were found on separate dates in 2010 and 2011 off the south-east coast and have been examined by a now-retired garda detective and forensic scientist.

The bones, which were found by fishermen working along the Waterford and Wexford coastlines, are all believed to have belonged to white males, aged over 30 and about 5ft 10in in height and are believed to have been in the sea for between two and eight years before they were found, as was the skull.