A VACANT GARDA station in Dublin could be transformed into a morgue and offices, which would mean three of our state pathologists could move out of the portacabins they work in.

At the Office of the State Pathologist in Marino, Prof Marie Cassidy, Dr Mike Curtis and Dr Khalid Jaber share two portacabins for carrying out work, such as drafting medical reports, microscopic analysis of samples from postmortems, dealing with correspondence from gardaí and the coroner and as an area to store some documents.

The temporary buildings are never used by the pathologists as an area to carry out autopsies:

“Autopsies are carried out in the city morgue on the same site or in other post-mortem facilities around the State e.g. HSE hospital facilities,” said the spokesperson.

The Dublin Coroner also uses portacabins on the same site as offices.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice told TheJournal.ie that it had been intended to build a modern “state of the art facility in Marino to not only undertake postmortems but to facilitate a range of other work”. However, the shared centre concept (between the Department and Dublin City Council) did not go ahead because of the collapse of the economy.

The spokesperson said although it’s in the early stages, the old Whitehall Garda Station, which was closed in January, is being look at as a possible new location.

“An evaluation as to the suitability of the premises is being carried out. The intention is to undertake minimal internal works to the building so as to provide modern basic requirements for the functions that need to be undertaken,” said the spokesperson.

“While this project will not be as sophisticated as the original project it will represent a considerable improvement on current facilities,” they added.

Read: Government to sell off some of the 139 closed garda stations>