A 21-year-old mother was jailed for a month yesterday after gardaí found her toddler with a glass of wine and a cigarette in his hand at their home last December.
The mother pleaded guilty to neglecting her two year-old son at Cobh District Court in April last, following an incident which occurred after she went on a day-long Christmas drinking spree with friends.
The court heard that gardaí called to the defendant's home after midnight on December 15th, 2002. The toddler was found with a cigarette and a glass of wine in his hand, wearing nothing only a filthy nappy and T-shirt, while 10 people were around him in a deep sleep from alcohol.
Garda Donncha Riordan said: "I spent ten minutes trying to wake them up but failed so I took the child into custody," adding he returned 70 minutes later and managed to wake up some of the people.
In imposing a three-month sentence, suspending the last two months, Judge Michael Pattwell said: "It's one of the hardest sentence decisions I've ever had to make. What happened that night was so horrific that my immediate reaction is to punish the person responsible very severely.
"She's incapable of being responsible for a child. If I got back reports today saying she had recognised the error she made, I would be very slow to impose a custodial sentence but she is still going her own way."
He imposed a condition that the woman co-operates with Child Care Services for five years.