Postmortem exams are due to be carried out on the bodies of two elderly deaf brothers found at a house in Dublin on Tuesday.
The two men had been sharing the home in Millrose Estate, Bluebell, west Dublin.
One of the men is believed to have lived at the house with the body of his brother for several weeks before he himself died last weekend.
The alarm was raised yesterday when neighbours became concerned that they had not seen either brother since the end of last week.
The men, who were in their 70s, have been named locally as Daniel and William McCarthy.
Gardaí, who described the discovery as “tragic”, believe one of the men died of natural causes “at least a number of weeks ago”. His brother continued to live at the property without moving the body.
Ran household
It is believed the man who died first effectively ran the household, including preparing meals. When he died, the other man was unable to look after himself and apparently unable to alert the authorities that his brother was dead.
The remains of the two men have been removed to the city morgue in Marino where postmortems were expected to begin this morning.
Garda sources said that, while the nature of the inquiry could not be determined until the postmortems were completed, it did not appear that foul play was a factor.
The postmortems are expected to be carried out on Wednesday, according to gardaí.
The chief executive of Alone, the elderly support organisation, described the deaths as an extreme example of what can happen to older vulnerable people.
“The thing that people need to realise is that isolation and loneliness affects around one in ten older people.”
Sean Moynihan said it was all too easy for some one to get cut off from the community especially if they are not linked in to the health services “and then something tragic can happen, like this”.
Alone, which was founded by the late Willie Bermingham after he found a number of people who had passed away alone, operates befriending services.
“We have a network up and down the country of 40 organisations and we train and support volunteers to actually befriend and support older people. In some cases you are visiting possibly vulnerable adults who are enduring other challenges as well as being isolated and lonely,” he said.
“What we’re saying to people for whom the radio is their only friend, there are alternatives out there, there are choices, there are ways that you can link into people like ourselves and we will help support and maybe fight that loneliness.
“Forty per cent of the referrals we get is from older people ringing themselves. How brave that is, to pick up the phone and say I’m lonely. If they do pick up the phone to us, they are guaranteed we will work with them.
“Confidentially, discreetly - ultimately they have choices and alternatives and we want to offer them.”
The Alone telephone number is 01 679 1032.
