The investigation began in recent weeks when Beaumont Hospital was informed by a UK coroner that "major irregularities" had been uncovered in the case of a 55-year-old man whose remains were sent from the northside Dublin hospital to the UK early last month.

Louie Selo, a banking analyst and father-of-three from Surrey in the UK, died of a massive heart attack in a taxi at Dublin airport on 2 August.

He and his wife Anna had travelled here for a holiday. His body was processed at Beaumont Hospital and a postmortem, which involves the temporary removal of vital organs from inside the chest cavity, was carried out. Two days later, the dead man's body was sent home for burial.

However, when the body was re-examined in England by a UK coroner, as is standard procedure for Britons who die abroad, doctors discovered that a number of spare organs were stitched inside his corpse, inside a plastic viscera bag.

The dead man's mother, Laura Selo, this weekend told the Sunday Tribune of her family's upset at the circumstances surrounding her son's remains.

"Louie was a lovely son. It is unimaginable the grief we are dealing with to lose so fine a man. The problems with delays after Louie's body came home to us meant that we could not bury my son until two weeks after he died, on 16 August. It was very distressing to us all, " Laura Selo said.

The Sunday Tribune has also learned that the hospital has not told the Health Service Executive (HSE) of the incident. A HSE spokesperson said that they were unaware of the circumstances prior to being informed by the Sunday Tribune yesterday. A spokesman for Beaumont Hospital confirmed that an internal investigation was underway and expressed "deep regret" to those affected.

As well as discovering what happened, the probe will also attempt to ascertain whether there are other cases of deceased persons whose bodies were processed at the facility's mortuary and then buried with vital organs belonging to other people.

Louie Selo was a wellrespected member of the British Jewish community. He worked as a systems analyst with Standard Chartered Bank for many years. The Beaumont Hospital spokesman said that the surplus organs found inside his body had been returned to the owner's family, who are Irish, and were buried in a religious ceremony, conducted by a priest, last month.