{"id":45319,"date":"2025-09-05T13:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45319\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T13:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:30:07","slug":"gardai-to-ask-brazil-for-help-in-speaking-to-father-of-missing-child-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45319\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed to ask Brazil for help in speaking to father of missing child \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garda\u00ed<\/a> are to use mutual legal assistance arrangements with Brazil<\/a> to interview the father of a boy who is missing and assumed dead in north Co Dublin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, investigators have roughly doubled the size of a search area at Portrane Road, Donabate, where they suspect the child may have been buried.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed 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.<\/p>\n

However, whether his death arose due to foul play, or in other circumstances, remains undetermined. Garda\u00ed have been given a number of conflicting statements regarding his death.<\/p>\n

The child\u2019s mother, who comes from an African country and has lived in Ireland for many years, has spoken in detail to garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed have also spoken by phone to the boy\u2019s father, who is from the west of Ireland and currently living in Brazil.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Garda\u00ed believe remains of missing boy assumed dead are buried on lands in north Co DublinOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because we want to speak to him in more detail, doesn\u2019t mean he\u2019s a suspect,\u201d a Garda source said. \u201cThis is a standard part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

One witness has provided garda\u00ed with what they said was the precise location of the boy\u2019s remains on an area of waste ground in Donabate.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed, with the assistance of a cadaver dog, have been searching the area since Monday.<\/p>\n

However, so far no remains have been found, leading garda\u00ed to gradually expand the search area. The witness who provided the information was described as \u201cnot the most reliable\u201d but sources said they remain confident they will find some evidence to progress the investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is possible they forgot the exact spot. They were probably not in a clearheaded state at the time,\u201d said a source.<\/p>\n

The search is set to continue through the weekend.<\/p>\n

A property in Donabate, where the boy was living in a family setting, was sealed off and searched last weekend.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Tusla<\/a> concluded its involvement with the family in 2020 with no further matters coming to light in the years that followed.<\/p>\n

However, Tusla last Friday went to the Garda and flagged its concerns for the boy\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the Ombudsman for Children, Dr Niall Muldoon, sharply criticised Tusla\u2019s response of referring its review of the case to its National Review Panel.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Conflicting witness statements emerge concerning missing boy, presumed deadOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Tusla said it does so as normal process, where there is a serious incident or death involving a child previously known to its service.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It was, he said, \u201cshocking 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe on Friday said the Government will examine how to put in place the \u201cresources and support\u201d Tusla needs to conduct wellbeing checks on some 38,000 children whose cases were closed in 2020 and 2021 during Covid-19 lockdowns. <\/p>\n

The checks are to be conducted on foot of a request by Minister for Children Norma Foley. <\/p>\n

Mr Donohoe told RT\u00c9\u2019s Morning Ireland that Tusla\u2019s budget was increased by \u20ac145 million last year in recognition of its work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed are to use mutual legal assistance arrangements with Brazil to interview the father of a boy who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[377,9,10,52,18,13,14,8030,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,8504],"class_list":{"0":"post-45319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-dublin","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-garda-siochana","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-tusla"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}