The State Pathologist, Dr John Harbison, carried out a post-mortem examination at Ardkeen Hospital in Waterford yesterday on the body of a young man who died in a boating accident in the Canary Islands last year.
The body of 21-year-old Gary Walton was exhumed yesterday from the cemetery near his home at Tooraneena, Dungarvan, on foot of an Exhumation Order issued by the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.
Mr Walton died last November when he fell from a boat carrying holiday makers on an excursion from Tenerife. His body was recovered, and after an inquest by the Spanish authorities it was flown home for burial.
His family, however, voiced concern about the inadequacy of information on the circumstances of his death. His father, Robert, is understood to have flown to the Canary Islands in January to make inquiries.
The family contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice to express their dissatisfaction with the Spanish inquiry and to press for a further post mortem.
Gary was the oldest boy of four children of the Walton family, who moved from England to settle in the Dungarvan area six years ago. He worked as a block-layer on building contracts with his father, and last year he also worked part-time in a bar to save for his first foreign holiday.
He travelled to the Canaries with other Irish people, including some from his home area, a remote rural parish north of Dungarvan.
The body was re-interred in the local graveyard last night. Tissue samples taken by the pathologist will be sent for detailed forensic analysis.