In the Wexford cemetery, the body of the woman was lowered into the ground, her history lost, her name unknown. Around Ireland, families of missing people went about their daily business, unaware that an unidentified woman had been found and buried. It would take over a decade for her story to reach them.

Now, finally, the gardai have given an undertaking to one family that they will find out who the woman was, even if this means exhuming her body. Meanwhile, another family have been frantically writing to the Department of Justice, worried and hopeful that the remains may be their lost sister.

As the gardai retrace the steps of the investigation, it is emerging that vital evidence has been lost. DNA samples taken from the woman have disappeared. The car keys in her pocket are nowhere to be found. Gardai are unsure what size jeans were on the remains. Dental records are incomplete. Sections of the original garda file are missing. The coroner involved in the case is dead. So is the undertaker. All the leads that were available in 1995, when the body was found, are gone.

Now the families of missing women Imelda Keenan, Priscilla Clarke and Eva Brennan are left wondering who the woman was, wondering how many more unidentified remains have been buried around the country, and how they were never told that a body had been discovered.

They are asking if it's possible that their loved ones have been lost and found, only to be lost again.

"I think it should be illegal to bury someone without identifying them, " a member of the Keenan family told the Sunday Tribune. "It's a horrible injustice. We were tormented when we heard it."

On 3 January, 1994, 22-year-old Imelda Keenan went missing in Waterford. One year and 10 months later, on 12 December 1995, a dog walker came across the remains of a woman on a beach in Wexford. She was wearing Lee jeans and brown lace up shoes. The gardai were called and her body was removed. And the Keenans never knew.

"I read about the woman just a few weeks ago and I went straight to the gardai who were investigating Imelda's case to ask them about it.

They said that they'd never heard about any woman being found in Wexford, " said the Keenan family member. "At that stage we knew that if we ever want Imelda found, we have to look ourselves. So I've been contacting a doctor in Gorey, trying to get the original coroner's report on the body. I rang his office almost every day but he hasn't returned my calls."

The Keenans have also turned to the authorities for help. "My brother has written to the minister for justice, asking for an exhumation. I've written to the chief superintendent of the gardai, asking for help to get the body identified. We've been waiting 13 years for news. We have to find out who she is. She might not be Imelda, we know that. But she's someone. Someone's daughter or sister."

Almost immediately after hearing the news, members of the Keenan family travelled to Wexford to visit the woman's grave in Crosstown Cemetery. "We brought a wreath of flowers, because this grave should have something on it, " one member said. "The caretaker showed us where it was. He said another family had been in contact because they thought their sister might be there. There are three people in the grave, and the headstone says, 'Also buried here is an unidentified female, found on 12th December, 1995.' I never thought that I could see that on a grave. Not when on that very day we were in Waterford, still scrabbling for any scrap of news of Imelda. It makes my blood boil. It's cruel. For me, this is a breakthrough.

I don't understand how the body hasn't been exhumed already. Why is there all this legal wrangling? She's unidentified. We're not hurting anyone to find out who she is."

The family of 25-year-old Priscilla Clarke are equally anxious to discover the woman's identity. Clarke went missing on 3 May 1988 at Powerscourt, Co Wicklow while out horseriding with Lynda Kavanagh, the wife of multimillionaire Mark Kavanagh. The two women were riding near the river Dargle, which was flooded at the time. Two days later, Lynda Kavanagh's body was found and shortly afterwards the search was called off.

But 20 years later, the Clarkes have never stopped looking for Priscilla. Which is why it came as an enormous shock to the family this year when they came across a cutting in a local newspaper about the woman found in Wexford.

Immediately, the Clarkes set to work trying to find out information about the body. They were told by the gardai investigating the case that Priscilla had never even been considered when they were trying to identify the woman. Indeed, the Clarkes had to remind the gardai who Priscilla was and when she went missing.

They, too, looked for the coroner's report, to no avail. Finally, with all avenues exhausted, they made a public appeal for the minister for justice to exhume the body. It was not until their story was reported in a newspaper that the minister asked the gardai for a report on the unmarked grave. That report is still pending.

Meanwhile, the Clarkes struggled to understand how they could have missed the news reports about the woman from Wexford. They scoured the national and local papers, looking for mention of the case, but found none.

When contacted by the Sunday Tribune this week, a garda spokeswoman said local radio and press were informed when the body was found. However, Ger Walsh, the then editor of the local paper the Wexford People, has no recollection of the case.

"It seems extraordinary that it didn't get into the paper at the time, " he said. "It was around Christmas time and it would have been a major, significant story for us.

I find it very difficult to believe that we were informed because obviously we'd have been interested in it. The only explanation I have is that somehow, because it was the holiday season, maybe it could be possible we didn't contact the gardai with the normal regularity. But that still doesn't explain how we never heard about the funeral, or why we weren't told about the case in January or February."

The Clarke family have now been given an undertaking from gardai that the body of the woman will be identified, even if it means it has to be exhumed. They say they are relieved and delighted they have been given this commitment and are anxious for the case of the Wexford woman to be resolved. "We know that it might not be Priscilla, " her sister Claire Keane told the Tribune. "But while there is even a 1% chance that she might be lying in that grave, we can't rest. We are also hopeful that structures will be put in place now to ensure that all unidentified remains are automatically cross-matched with missing persons. Knowing that there is a proper database and a system in place would be of great comfort for families of missing people."

Along with the Keenans and the Clarkes, a number of other families could be affected by the exhumation of the woman in Wexford. American woman Annie McCarrick disappeared in the Dublin Mountains in 1993 and 21-year-old Jo Jo Dullard went missing in Moone in 1995. There is also Eva Brennan, who was last seen in Terenure in 1993. Her family have also only recently heard about the body in Wexford.

"How could a body of an unidentified woman be buried in 1995 when so many women were missing at the time? It's beyond me, " said Collette McCann, Eva's sister. "It shows so little regard for all of us. I haven't asked the gardai if they considered Eva at the time because I've learnt that there's no point asking questions. I won't get any answers. I do think the body should be exhumed.

It could be Eva, it could be someone else's relative. It could put some family at rest."

However, despite the criticism from the families, a garda spokeswoman says the investigation was thorough. She said Interpol was informed, as was the Missing Persons Unit. Asked if gardai considered at the time that the remains could be a number of missing women, including Eva Brennan and Priscilla Clarke, she replied "Yes, including several other missing women."

Asked if they had any response to fears expressed by the families that there are other unidentified remains buried around the country, the spokeswoman had no comment.

Meanwhile, the garda report into the unmarked grave is yet to come. Until then, the families must wait and wonder if their loved one was found in 1995 and buried in a pauper's grave in the early morning light, under the lonely gaze of a garda, a priest and an undertaker.