It has been confirmed that the couple at the centre of the parental controversy in Dublin are the girl's biological parents, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said this evening.
The Minister has asked the Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan for a report on the case.
He has requested it should also outline the circumstances of a similar case in which a toddler boy was removed from his family home in the midlands last night but returned this morning.
Both families are foreign and the removal of the children was prompted by concerns that the couples claiming to be their biological parents were not any blood relation of the children. These concerns were based mainly on the fact the children did not resemble any other family members.
The Dublin case occurred after a so-called tip off to the Paul Connolly Investigates programme on TV3 was passed to gardaí by Mr Connolly on Monday. The person who contacted the programme had suspicions the girl had been living as a member of the family but was not a blood relative as they claimed.
A similar high profile case in Greece this week has revealed a young girl was living with a couple who claimed to be her biological parents but were found to be lying.
When gardaí went to the home of the girl in west Dublin on Monday to investigate, the couple told officers the girl was their biological daughter.
The gardaí, from a child protection unit, sought a birth cert and passport. After a period of time the documents were produced.
However, investigating gardaí could not be sure of the authenticity of the birth cert. Their concerns were deepened after the couple gave a date of birthday for the child at a Dublin hospital, which had no record of the birth when checks were made.
However, it later emerged there was a record of a child’s birth under the mother’s maiden name.
Gardaí also had concerns about the passport because the child in the photograph was much younger than the child at the centre of the case, meaning it was impossible to determine if it was the same girl.
The gardaí contacted the HSE and the girl was taken from the house on Monday evening and brought to hospital where she was medically examined.
Once those medical checks were completed, the child was placed into the care of the HSE.
The HSE yesterday went to the courts seeking an emergency care order to retain the child in its care. The family consented to that order overnight.
This case comes on a day when the boy who was taken from his family in the midlands, on suspicion he was not the son of a couple who claimed him, was returned to the family.
