Updated 09:04

A MAN WHO BROUGHT the remains of his late mother to a rented house in Co Kerry is reported to have fled the country – leaving no indication of where his mother’s body might be.

The Irish Daily Star reports that the elderly woman, believed to have been 91, died after she had taken ill while on holiday in Malta, and died on September 24.

The man, who RTÉ reports to be from the south of England, had told his landlord in Kenmare he would need to  take some time off from paying his rent because he would have to go to take care of the woman.

The man, who is in his early 60s, is said to have driven to the UK to collect his mother’s body from Gatwick Airport, and then drove back to Kerry via Northern Ireland carrying her remains, leaving it in repose upstairs in the house.

He had not, as is required, notified the authorities of his actions.

It is understood that the fact the body remained in state came to light when the landlord went to visit the house in order to clean it, and was met by the tenant who informed him his mother’s body was upstairs if he had wanted to pay his respects.

The landlord then informed the Gardaí, who contacted the Kerry county coroner Terence Casey to inform him of the dead body. Casey served notice on October 25 that the body must either be buried or cremated, or it would be confiscated and held in cold storage at the man’s expense.

Gardaí had called to the house a few days later to enquire as to whether the order had been followed – but found no sign either of the tenant or his mother.

“There had not been hair or trace or him ever since and we don’t know what he did with the body,” Casey said, explaining that he was concerned the body would have begun to decompose at this point, despite the body having been embalmed before its flight from Malta.

We don’t know where we went – whether he’s still in this jurisdiction or has left – but people shouldn’t approach them if they come across them.

RTÉ reported that it understood the man was “devoted” to his mother.