A MAN and a woman have been arrested by gardaí investigating the death of a 10-day-old infant from Meath.
The baby boy, named locally as John McCarthy from Navan, died last Friday, hours after being taken to the emergency department of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
Sources confirmed he had sustained head injuries and a fractured arm. The injuries are understood to have been consistent with those suffered in a fall from a height.
The woman was arrested on suspicion of assault and the man on suspicion of withholding information from gardaí. Both were taken into custody last night.
The newborn had travelled with his parents from their home in Navan to a house in Scholars Walk in Lusk last Thursday night.
A number of adults and at least two children were in the house and at about midnight the baby was taken by three men and his mother to the emergency department of Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
Despite efforts by doctors and nursing staff, the baby died around two hours later.
A team from the Garda Technical Bureau spent four days examining the house. Their findings and those of State Pathologist Prof Marie Cassidy, who carried out a postmortem on the baby, led to gardaí making the arrests.
It was clear to staff at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital that the baby’s injuries were life threatening and at about 2am last Friday, two hours after being taken to hospital, he died. He had been born in the same hospital.
Hospital staff are understood to have been extremely upset at the death of such a young child. The man is being questioned at Whitehall Garda station and the woman at Balbriggan Garda station.