Gardaí have found what are believed to be human remains in east county Cork.
They were found by a garda with a search dog on the main Midleton to Whitegate road, around 5km from the village of Whitegate just after midday.
The remains were skeletal and the scene has been preserved by gardaí.
The remains are due to be examined there by the Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster later this afternoon.
Identification is likely to take some time and will rely on dental or DNA records.
However, RTÉ News understands that gardaí are investigating if they are the remains of 47-year-old Kieran Quilligan, who went missing from Cork city centre last September.
Gardaí had conducted an extensive search of farmland on the edge of the Courtstown Industrial Estate in Little Island over several days later that month.
However, that search ended without finding Mr Quilligan’s body.
Mr Quilligan was last seen on the evening of 1 September last year, leaving a premises on Anderson’s Quay in Cork in the company of another man.
Using CCTV, gardaí tracked his movements from there to St Finnbarr’s Place, close to St Finnbarr’s Cathedral and the South Channel of the River Lee.
Since then, there has been no sighting of him and, from the outset, significant resources were allocated to the garda investigation into Mr Quilligan’s disappearance.
Three weeks after he was last seen, the garda investigation moved to a farm at the edge of the Courtstown Industrial Estate in Little Island, more than 10km from the city in east Cork.
An extensive area of farmland and waste ground was searched. A local Coast Guard team conducted searches of the coastline. Specially-trained dogs and their handlers from the Civil Defence K9 team in Cork and the Search and Rescue Dog Association also assisted.
Throughout the search, members of Mr Quilligan’s family maintained a vigil at the garda cordon, awaiting news.
However, the search ended without any trace of Mr Quilligan being found.
The remains found this morning were close to Whitegate, around 25km south-east of Little Island and 35km where Kieran Quilligan was last seen on CCTV in Cork City.
The remains will be transferred to Cork University Hospital for a post mortem examination, after they have been examined by Dr Bolster.
