A BABY girl found abandoned by a roadside in a plastic bag has been named ‘Maria’ by hospital staff caring for her.
Gardaí yesterday put on display replicas of a number of items found with the newborn infant when she was discovered by a passing motorist on Steelstown Road in the Rathcoole of Co Dublin on Friday afternoon.
The items included a paper M&S carrier bag, a black plastic bin-liner and a mink-coloured Primark Home fleece throw.
Emergency services were alerted by a couple who had been driving on the relatively quiet road but stopped by chance at a gate to a farmer’s field at around 3.30pm.
The man was answering a call of nature when he noticed the bag. When the couple opened it they found the naked infant, wrapped in the throw inside a bin-liner.
The infant is currently in a stable condition at Dublin’s Coombe Hospital
Gardaí at Clondalkin are leading the search for the mother amid fears that she may be distressed and may require urgent medical care.
Superintendent Brendan Connolly yesterday said the baby was “doing well” in the care of hospital staff, confirming that she had been between 24 and 36 old when she was found. He said the baby had been “fed and looked after” before being left at the roadside.
Supt Connolly said that while throw and bags were “everyday items” they might help jog somebody’s memory.
He stressed that gardaí were not conducting a criminal inquiry, focussing instead on the need to locate the mother “to ensure that she receives medical treatment if she requires it and that she is reunited with her baby”.
“Mum need have no fear…It is not a case that anyone is in trouble,” he added.
He said investigators were working closely with the Health Service Executive and the Republic’s child and family agency, Tusla, on the case, adding that the mother would be treated with “compassion and sensitivity”.
Senior social worker Rita Byrne also appealed to the mother to come forward saying Tusla would look at supports it could offer her into the future.
“Our hope is that mammy will come forward, and obviously we will be seeking legal advice in relation to baby Maria,” she added.
The last high profile case involving an abandoned baby in the Republic occurred in 2003 when a three day old naked infant girl was found in a blue holdall on the boot of a car outside the South Infirmary Hospital in Cork city.
Named ‘Sophia’ by nurses the baby was placed in the care of foster parents.
Despite repeated appeals by gardaí Sophia’s mother never came forward and the HSE eventually applied to the High Court for an adoption order to allow her foster parents to be given full rights in 2008.
