Gardaí are to use mutual legal assistance arrangements with Brazil to interview the father of a boy who is missing and assumed dead in north Co Dublin.
Meanwhile, investigators have roughly doubled the size of a search area at Portrane Road, Donabate, where they suspect the child may have been buried.
Gardaí fear the boy, who would have been aged seven now, died about four years ago and his remains were buried in an attempt to conceal his death.
However, whether his death arose due to foul play, or in other circumstances, remains undetermined. Gardaí have been given a number of conflicting statements regarding his death.
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The child’s mother, who comes from an African country and has lived in Ireland for many years, has spoken in detail to gardaí.
Gardaí have also spoken by phone to the boy’s father, who is from the west of Ireland and currently living in Brazil.
However, they are keen to speak to him in more detail as part of their investigations. One option is to send a team to Brazil to conduct an interview alongside local police.
They may also ask Brazilian police to speak to the man on their behalf or arrange a video call. Ireland and Brazil have a mutual legal assistance agreement in place facilitate such co-operation.
“Just because we want to speak to him in more detail, doesn’t mean he’s a suspect,” a Garda source said. “This is a standard part of the process.”
One witness has provided gardaí with what they said was the precise location of the boy’s remains on an area of waste ground in Donabate.
Gardaí, with the assistance of a cadaver dog, have been searching the area since Monday.
However, so far no remains have been found, leading gardaí to gradually expand the search area. The witness who provided the information was described as “not the most reliable” but sources said they remain confident they will find some evidence to progress the investigation.
“It is possible they forgot the exact spot. They were probably not in a clearheaded state at the time,” said a source.
The search is set to continue through the weekend.
A property in Donabate, where the boy was living in a family setting, was sealed off and searched last weekend.
The child was in the care of the State for a long period, from the time he was a newborn, as his parents were considering asking for him to be adopted. However, they had a change of heart and the boy was reunited with them.
Tusla concluded its involvement with the family in 2020 with no further matters coming to light in the years that followed.
However, Tusla last Friday went to the Garda and flagged its concerns for the boy’s welfare. The intervention appears to have come about after checks were made on a social welfare payment relating to the child that resulted in unanswered questions about his whereabouts.
On Thursday, the Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon, sharply criticised Tusla’s response of referring its review of the case to its National Review Panel.
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Tusla said it does so as normal process, where there is a serious incident or death involving a child previously known to its service.
However, Dr Muldoon said the panel held no statutory power and that both Tusla and the Department of Children previously agreed it was not fit for purpose.
It was, he said, “shocking that we are dealing with a situation where a child, who at one point was known to the Tusla, could have disappeared four years ago and is now presumed dead”.
Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe on Friday said the Government will examine how to put in place the “resources and support” Tusla needs to conduct wellbeing checks on some 38,000 children whose cases were closed in 2020 and 2021 during Covid-19 lockdowns.
The checks are to be conducted on foot of a request by Minister for Children Norma Foley.
Mr Donohoe told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that Tusla’s budget was increased by €145 million last year in recognition of its work.
