HSE may seek DNA in bid to identify 'John Doe' in psychiatric hospital for 30 years

The HSE, secured an order last May to have a court-appointed medical doctor visit the man for the purpose of assessing his capacity.

The HSE may seek High Court permission to take a DNA sample from an unidentified vulnerable elderly man, who has been in a psychiatric hospital here for more than 30 years, in a bid to identify him.

Now believed to be in his late 80s or 90s, the man was first admitted to the psychiatric hospital after being taken there by gardaí in the mid-1980s.