Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has said the IRA has made a genuine attempt to help locate the bodies of people abducted and killed during the Troubles.
Mr Adams' comments come a week after the body of a woman was found on a beach near Carlingford in Co Louth.
The family of Jean McConville are hoping the discovery will bring closure to trauma that began when she was abducted by the IRA in 1972. DNA tests are taking place to see if it is the body of Mrs McConville.
Doubts were raised about yesterday's IRA claims that it had recently passed on information about two of the so called disappeared - Jean McConville and Columba McVeigh.
But RTÉ has learned from a reliable official source that the IRA did contact intermediaries during the summer.
It was while this information was being assessed to see if was useful or might lead to more fruitless searches that the discovery was made in Carlingford.
The source has also revealed that on the republican side there are people working in good faith on the issue of the so called disappeared.
However some of the affected families have expressed doubts.
Co Armagh man Gareth O Connor went missing three months ago. His parents dismiss the IRA claims that it did not abduct him.
They say they will stay in the faces of Sinn Féin and the IRA until their son is found.
The mother of Columba McVeigh has said she would love to be able to bury her son in the family grave before she herself passes on.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio, Vera McVeigh (79) said she wanted Columba's body found so that the burden of the unknown whereabouts of his remains would not have to be shouldered by other members of her family.
Columba McVeigh, a 17-year-old from Donaghmore in Co Tyrone, was abducted and murdered in 1975 after he allegedly confessed to spying on the IRA.
