Gardaí searching for a baby boy's remains at a house in Dalkey, Co Dublin, have ended their two-week dig and said nothing of any evidential value was discovered.
In a statement, the Garda Press Office said: "The investigation continues and information not previously related to gardaí
has now been submitted. All aspects of this complicated investigation are being pursued and progressed," the statement said.
The baby they were searching for has been linked to a woman, known only as "Niamh", who gave birth to another baby when she was aged 11. The baby girl was allegedly stabbed to death by Niamh’s mother and then dumped in a laneway in Dún Laoghaire, although the woman has denied the accusation.
Niamh claimed she later gave birth to another child when aged 15 and that he was stillborn.
Technical experts believe that if the body of a newborn baby had been buried in the garden in the 1970s, there would be little or no trace of it now.
Solicitors acting for Niamh have said she outlined a catalogue of sexual abuse during her childhood and teenage years by a number of family members. It is only in recent years, since she has had extensive therapy, that she has been able to speak about the events.
The body of the day-old baby girl, who was called Noeleen, was discovered by two young boys in Dún Laoghaire in 1973. She had been stabbed several times with a knitting needle.
Noeleen was buried in a communal "Angels" plot at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin, which makes the possibility of exhumation for further examination almost impossible.
When the full allegations were put to Niamh's mother recently she said: "I don't know what to make of it because I know that I had 10 children for him [her husband] and I thought I had enough for him.
"And I don't know how she's saying that, because I never ever seen anything like that going on. And you'd have to see it to believe it, to know that it's true."
She said the Garda dig in the family's former home in Dalkey would yield nothing.
Niamh’s father, when contacted by the media, denied knowing her but said it made a good story for the media.
