The mother of a five-year-old girl who was critically injured in a Dublin stabbing has said her daughter has shown “incredible strength” as she recovers in hospital.
She is one of three children and childcare worker Leanne Flynn who suffered knife injuries during the attack outside the Gaelscoil Choláiste Mhuire school in Parnell Square on November 23.
The two other children, aged five and six, while the childcare worker who shielded them from the attack remains in a serious condition in hospital.
A 49-year-old man is the main suspect and is also being treated in hospital for serious head injuries before facing police questions.
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McDonald defends sharing picture of person sitting ‘near scene of knife attack'
After the Dublin riots, knowledge and truth is the antidote to ignorance and hate – Denis Bradley
As the young girl remains in Temple Street Children’s Hospital for extremely serious injuries, her mother shared an update on Friday on a GoFundMe page.
Posted on her behalf by the page organiser, she said: "Dear all, thank you so much for the incredible gesture and kindness you have shown our family during these troubled times.
“Your thoughts, prayers and generosity have and will go a long way. Our little girl has shown incredible strength and (is) still here with us. We don't know yet what lies ahead as it is still early, but she is resilient and limitations will not stop her. Thank you so much. All the love we can give."
The fundraiser is entitled Barróg do Chailín Beag (A Hug for a Little Girl) and has so far raised over €25,000 to support the family, with around 1,600 people donating.
Several other fundraisers have also been established to help the victims, bystanders who had intervened to save them as well as for businesses that were damaged in the riots that followed in the city centre.
Meanwhile, the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has defended a decision to share a photo of an individual drinking on steps near where the attack took place.
She said the photo had been taken around the school pickup time and that families at the school had felt “forgotten and ignored” after the attack, with the riots receiving international press coverage.
The Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee and Labour leader Ivana Bacik criticised sharing an image of an identifiable person as “outrageous grandstanding”.
Ms McDonald said she wanted to show the realities of what families at the school faced.
“There’s no polite way to come at this,” she told reporters on Friday.
“The fact is, day in, day out it is the daily lived experience for people in inner city communities… of vulnerable people… engaged in taking drugs there’s people selling drugs, there’s all sorts.
“That doesn’t happen outside middle class schools – by the way, nor should it – and it shouldn’t happen outside Gaelscoil Cholaiste Mhuire.”
