Searches are being carried out in areas of scrubland and woods near where skeletal remains were discovered yesterday in east Cork.
Garda crime scene investigators are also continuing their examination at the scene which is adjacent to the busy main Midleton to Whitegate road near Whitewell Cross.
Gardaí said this evening that a post-mortem examination on the remains has been concluded and that no details were being provided for operational reasons.
They say efforts to identify the remains are ongoing.
Gardaí say any formal identification will require dental records or DNA samples.
The discovery was made by a garda and sniffer dog, carrying out searches in the area for 47-year-old Kieran Quilligan, missing and believed abducted from Cork City centre almost five months ago.
Mr Quilligan was last seen on the evening of 1 September last year, leaving a premises on Anderson's Quay in Cork in the company of another man.
Using CCTV, gardaí tracked his movements from there to St Finnbarr's Place, close to St Finnbarr's Cathedral and the South Channel of the River Lee.
Since then, there has been no sighting of him and and significant resources have been allocated to the garda investigation into his disappearance.
Three weeks after he was last seen, the garda investigation moved to a farm at the edge of the Courtstown Industrial Estate in Little Island, more than 10km from the city in east Cork.
An extensive area of farmland and waste ground was searched. A local Coast Guard team conducted searches of the coastline.
Specially-trained dogs and their handlers from the Civil Defence K9 team in Cork and the Search and Rescue Dog Association also assisted.
Throughout the search, members of Mr Quilligan's family maintained a vigil at the garda cordon, awaiting news.
However, the search ended without any trace of Mr Quilligan being found.
The remains found yesterday morning were close to Whitegate, around 25km southeast of Little Island and 35km from where Mr Quilligan was last seen on CCTV.
It is understood a garda family liaison officer made contact with Mr Quilligan's family shortly after the discovery, to keep them informed of the investigation and its findings.
