Families are facing delays arranging funerals because of growing pressure on the country’s post-mortem services.
A shortage of pathologists and mortuary staff means some hospitals can’t release bodies back to families within a reasonable time frame.
Experts say there are also questions over who is in charge of the whole process, as responsibility sits between the Departments of Health, Justice and the HSE.
Denis McAuley, President of the Irish Coroner’s Society, says funerals here could take as long to be held as they do in England:
