HSE to pay for repatriating bodies of crash victims

The health authorities are to pay the cost of repatriating the bodies of the five eastern Europeans killed in a car crash near Buncrana, Co Donegal, last weekend.

The bodies of four Latvians and one Lithuanian are due to be flown home this weekend.

A spokeswoman for the Health Service Executive (HSE) said the cost of repatriating the bodies - expected to be several thousand euro - would be absorbed by local health services.

"It is a compassionate gesture and something that we've done before. There is a protocol in place for events like this," she said.

a social work team had been operating in the Inishowen area, liaising with family and friends of the five deceased by offering support and counselling. Community officers had also been advising relatives of benefits and entitlements.

Ivars Lasis, the first secretary of the Latvian embassy in Dublin, said: "Both the families, and we here in the embassy, are very grateful. The families have been really touched by the response of the Irish people and the community in Buncrana."

Mr Lasis said members of families affected by the tragedy whom he had spoken to by telephone were devastated and wanted the bodies of their loved ones home as soon as possible.

Memorial services will be held for the crash victims, beginning with a service in the mortuary of Letterkenny General Hospital at 2pm today. Anoher is planned for Buncrana at 6pm on Friday.

The first bodies to be flown home to Riga early on Friday will be those of mother and daughter, Ginta Veite (19) and Aija Porcika (38), who had been travelling back from Dublin airport on the night of the crash. The body of Lithuanian Ricardis Bielskis (35), a passenger in the other car, will be repatriated to Vilnius on the same day.