Gardai were tonight trying to identify the young woman whose body was found near a laneway in Dublin's city centre.
A passer-by made the discovery on the corner of Mercer Street and Aungier Place at around 4.15am. The woman's body was wrapped in a blanket which was fastened with a piece of rope. A Garda spokeswoman said the woman had not yet been identified.
"The body will be brought to the city morgue where a post mortem will be carried out," she said. An incident room has been set up at Harcourt Terrace Garda station as part of the murder investigation.
The body was covered by a large white and blue tent at the top of Aungier Place lane while a forensics team carried out investigations.
It is overlooked by the four-storey Mercer Street flat complex on one side and the five-storey New York Street flats on the other. "Kids play down that lane all day long. I hope the body's gone by the time they come out from school at half two," said another local woman.
One woman who was returning home from a friend's house at around 3.45am, 30 minutes before the body was discovered, said there had been no sign of activity on the streets. "There wasn't a sinner around," she said.
Although locals do not know the identity of the young woman, most believe her body was dumped in the area. Gardai requested workers from Dublin City Council to halt their refuse collection so that the bins in the area could be examined.