Day-old baby boy taken into HSE custody

A day-old breast-fed baby was taken from its mother yesterday after a strong force of gardaí surrounded a house in a border county on the instructions of HSE care workers.

Mr Justice Sean Ryan will sit in the High Court first thing today to hear legal argument as to the lawfulness of the baby’s detention.

Michael O’Higgins SC, counsel for the baby and its mother, told the court that the child was born on Wednesday and by Thursday evening it was the subject of an emergency care application by the HSE in the district court.

The identity of the baby or its parents, or publication of any detail that might lead to identifying any of them, was banned by the court, which heard there were “certain existing allegations” against the father which had been of concern to the HSE.

Mr O’Higgins, who appeared with Mairead Carey, said the baby was now in the custody of the HSE and he was asking the court to direct an inquiry into the lawfulness of that custody.

He said the issue to be decided by the High Court was whether there was a deficiency in the procedure adopted in yesterday’s district court hearing.

He said the mother has one teenage child in care of the HSE and the father had two teenage children also in the care of the HSE.

Mr O’Higgins said that after the mother had become pregnant the pregnancy had been monitored by the HSE. A conference had been held by the HSE on Sept 10 at which it had been considered the baby might be at risk following birth.

At 8.17am on Wednesday, the mother gave birth to a boy and by 5.15pm the family solicitor had received an indication that an emergency care application would be made before a District Court judge on Thursday.

The mother and baby left the hospital on Thursday morning and had gone to a friend’s house.

“A large number of gardaí surrounded the house and went inside and announced to those inside that they were under house arrest, causing a significant degree of distress to the mother,” Mr O’Higgins told the court.

Following negotiations between the family solicitor and gardaí, the Garda presence surrounding the house, which consisted of two squad cars and a Garda van, had been reduced to one Garda car.

Shortly afterwards a Garda application had been made to the district court, which had been told of Garda concern about a risk to the child’s safety.

“There is a suspicion that this was enjoined retrospectively to justify the garda presence at the house and the house arrest,” said Mr O’Higgins.

He said the district court judge had not made any order but said he was satisfied a risk existed and that it was a matter for the High Court.

He said no complaint was directed against the mother of the child but against her partner, a man she had recently married.

Mr O’Higgins said the mother had given an undertaking that she would reside with her baby separate from its father.