VIDEO: Gardaí seek human remains lorry

Gardaí were last night trying to identify which bin lorry carried the remains of the human body that was found at a recycling plant late on Thursday night.

It is part of a wider investigation which is trying to identify the person and establish whether the person died accidentally or at the hands of another person.

Detectives hope that, if they can pinpoint which lorry was carrying the person, they can follow its route and gather any CCTV from the various locations from which it picked up waste. This could capture images of the person who somehow ended up in a large wheelie bin.

Last February, a homeless man narrowly escaped death after falling asleep in a recycling bin which had been tipped into a rubbish compactor.

Last August, another homeless man, Henryk Piotrowski, died after a commercial wheelie bin he was in was emptied into a compactor and he was crushed to death.

The body of Mr Piotrowski, aged 43 and originally from Poland, was found when the contents of the truck were emptied at the Panda recycling facility in Ballymount, south Dublin.

The alarm was raised on Thursday night when staff at the Thornton Recycling Plant on Killeen Road in Ballyfermot, west Dublin, discovered a limb, believed to be part of a leg, while sorting rubbish at around 11.40pm.

Gardaí arrived and a doctor was called, who confirmed the remains were that of a human. The area was sealed off overnight pending a forensic examination and the arrival of the State pathologist.

A full search was conducted and a second body part, possibly part of a hip, was uncovered. A detailed Garda search continued throughout yesterday.

Deputy State pathologist Michael Curtis arrived yesterday morning and the parts were removed to Tallaght Hospital for examination.

Gardaí wanted to know whether the parts belonged to the same person, what was the gender and the race, as well as an approximate age. Garda sources said the parts could be the result of a tragic accident, possibly involving a homeless person who had ended up in a bin, or the result of something more sinister.

It was also considered that it could be the result of the misplacement of human remains following medical or pathology procedures.

Sources said investigators were “scratching their heads” at the gruesome discovery.

If the Garda team is able to establish which one of the bin lorries the body was carried in, it will aid their investigations, which will still take considerable time.

They will locate the various locations from where the lorry picked up waste and determine what, if any, camera footage is near those areas.

They will then try and secure the footage and go through the exhaustive and time-consuming process of viewing it.