At about 8am on a Saturday in April 2012, gardaí were contacted by a Gardiner Street hostel in Dublin. Staff had discovered a two-week-old boy left lying alone on a bed in one of their rooms.
He was brought to Temple Street children’s hospital and was in good health. His mother, a German woman, described by staff as “very calm, not panicked”, had walked out of the hostel and flown to Frankfurt.
Every so often – like the baby discovered at the weekend near a business premises in Rathcoole, Co Dublin – distressing cases emerge in which newborn or very young children are discovered having been left alone.
Once their health, the immediate priority in any such case, is assessed and secured, the focus switches quickly to the whereabouts of the parents.
Generally the only reason we hear about these instances is because the authorities move swiftly to launch a public appeal for information.
In cases of newborn babies, authorities stress the need to establish the health and psychological state of the mother and, where possible, to reunite her with the child as quickly as possible.
The myriad reasons for leaving children alone are self-evidently complex and distressing. Details rarely emerge in public. In the 2012 hostel case, the woman, aged in her mid-20s, was contacted by police in Germany, but was reluctant to return to Dublin. Instead, her parents made travel arrangements to collect the child.
Heard crying
Goran Josifov
, a receptionist at the guest house, later described how one of the cleaners had heard crying emanating from what was supposed to be an empty room.
“So I went with her and we opened the door and there was a very small baby lying in the middle of the double bed,” he said. Beside the boy was a change of clothes, some nappies and a soda bottle.
In January, 2010, visitors to the Cathedral of the Assumption in Carlow thought they heard a couple crying in the porch.
It probably meant little to them at the time until a little later when a woman found an eight-month-old boy lying on the doorstep. Beside him was a note bearing his name and date of birth.
It later transpired a couple, aged 21 and 24 and thought to be the boy's biological parents, had taken him on a ferry from Wales after he went missing from his legal guardian's home.
They had no obvious Irish connections, but rather seemed intent on escaping the UK. Whatever their motivation, they decided to hand themselves in to police once they got off the return boat in Holyhead.
Child abduction
The boy was safe and well and returned to his legal guardian, while the couple were charged with child abduction in
England
.
Widespread concerns also followed a case in 2005 in which a baby girl was found alone in a pram in Tara Street train station in Dublin. In the build up to evening rush-hour, worried passing commuters informed staff, and gardaí were called.
A year-and-a-half later, her father pleaded guilty to her abandonment in Dublin District Court, citing “forgetfulness” as his reason.
In 2003, a baby girl was found in a blue holdall on the boot of a car parked outside a hospital in Cork. She was only about three days old.
“The baby’s mother will be treated with confidentiality, compassion and understanding,” a Garda spokeswoman stressed, outlining some 12 years ago exactly the manner in which this latest case is being approached.
