After nearly three weeks of extensive excavation in a sprawling marshland in north Dublin, the skeletal remains of three-year-old Daniel Aruebose were uncovered in a grave so shallow that police suspect it was excavated by hand.

This young boy with large brown eyes vanished during the summer of 2021, yet his disappearance went unreported. In fact, it has since come to light that many of his family members were unaware of his existence. Due to the severe decomposition of Daniel’s remains, there is now a significant concern that the circumstances surrounding his death may remain a mystery.

This week, the leader of the Irish child and family agency Tusla described the situation as ‘absolutely harrowing.’ Despite this, Kate Duggan stated that following an internal investigation, the agency found ‘no child protection concerns.’

‘He was not known to any child protection service,’ she informed the Government’s Public Accounts Committee on Thursday. She also mentioned that the findings of the internal review had been forwarded to the Department of Children, expressing her full support for their public release, provided it does not compromise the ongoing Garda investigation into Daniel’s death.

Although the circumstances of his death remain unclear, there is substantial information about the events leading up to his parents, Maria Aruebose and Ciaran Dirrane, traveling approximately 3km from their Donabate home to an isolated area in the dead of night, carrying Daniel’s small body in a holdall bag.

Initially, Aruebose reportedly told police that Daniel had been killed, but she later changed her statement, claiming he ‘died in his sleep,’ and in a panic, the couple opted to bury his body.

It’s likely their extraordinary decision might never have come to light, except that a couple of months ago, in the run up to the new school year, a social welfare claim was made in Daniel’s name. As part of the paperwork, his mother falsely alleged he was attending a local school, but when checks were made it was discovered that Daniel had never been listed on the roll call.

The Department of Social Protection then contacted Tusla, and after making inquiries, the agency alerted the gardaí on August 29 about its concerns.

Over the weekend of August 30-31, officers were dispatched to technically examine an apartment at The Gallery complex in Donabate, where Daniel lived with his parents for almost two years.

It’s been since reported they found nothing in the apartment to show that it was once the home of a little boy. Not a trace of Daniel remained, apart from one photograph, taken when he was about two-and-a-half. Wearing a red long-sleeved top with a picture of a bear on the front, he stares dolefully at the camera. This is the heartbreaking image – now etched in most of our minds – that was later released to the media as gardaí appealed for information from the public.

It prompted Daniel’s one-time foster sister to come forward with fresh photos of him, ones that showed the smiley, happy baby who her family had come to love and cherish.

For the rest of us, it came as a relief to know that ‘baby Danny’ had been much adored and wanted, and for the first 18 months of his life had regular contact with a foster family who held on to him for as long as they could.

Daniel was born at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin city on December 12, 2017. At the time his parents were living in shared accommodation in Portmarnock, a seaside suburb on the northside. Their then landlord has told how he picked the couple up from Heuston train station to drive them out to their new home.

Clutching just two plastic bags of personal belongings, they told the landlord they were sick of their previous home in Galway and ‘decided to come up to Dublin and give it a try’.

It’s now known that Ciaran Dirrane is originally from the Aran Islands, while Maria Aruebose lived in Cork up until she was 18. She was born in Nigeria but moved to Ireland with her parents in 2003, when she was five years old.

The eldest of six children, her family are described as devout Christians and despite being very bright at school, Aruebose rebelled against her parents, left home at 18 and moved to Dublin. She kept in contact with her siblings and mother sporadically by phone over the next ten years, but they had no idea of what she was doing or who she was with.

They were also clueless that she had given birth to a baby boy.

It wasn’t until gardaí called to the family home on August 28 that Aruebose’s mother learned that she’d had a grandson. In the middle of doing housework, she answered the door and was asked if Daniel was staying there. Stunned, she told them she had never met him, and up until that moment never knew of his existence. Neither had she ever met or heard of Ciaran Dirrane.

It would seem that Aruebose and Dirrane had always been secretive.

Certainly their landlord in Portmarnock had no clue that Aruebose, who has been described as an avid online ‘gamer’, was expecting a child and was shocked to learn she’d gone into the Rotunda maternity hospital.

‘She wasn’t pregnant when I met them,’ he told the Irish Independent. ‘They would lie in their room watching television. I just kept to myself. I was never aware she was pregnant until this particular day I said to Ciaran, “Where is Maria?'” and he said, “Oh, she’s gone to the hospital to have a baby.” I said, “You must be joking!” and he said she was gone to have a child.’

It’s thought they gave Daniel up to be fostered on the day he was born because they believed their shared accommodation was an unsuitable place to raise a baby.

Daniel’s foster sister, who is now in her 20s, told The Journal website that he came to live at her home for the first full year of his life and that he ‘became a part of the family quickly’.

‘He was with us for just under a year,’ she explained. ‘We got him the first day he was born, and we had to give him back the day before his first birthday, when he went back to live with his biological family.

‘Then he would come for a few days a week not long after that, he’d go back and forth, for about six months.’

It’s clear Daniel was much loved during his time in foster care.

‘He was the sweetest little baby ever,’ the young woman said. ‘We were all absolutely beside ourselves [when we got him]. He was so cute. We always joked that every child we fostered looked like part of the family, but obviously Danny didn’t, and people had questions, they were just curious about him.’

She added: ‘He was so clever. I obviously might be a little biased, but he already had a strong personality, he loved dancing, he loved laughing, and he loved showing off that he understood you. Like we’d go “where’s the light?'” and he’d know from only a few months old, he’d point up at the light. He was just a very clever baby.’

Daniel went back to live with his biological parents full-time in the summer of 2019, which is the last time his foster sister saw him.

‘I’d help my mum a lot with the kids, I am the eldest. We had other babies come to live with us after Danny, but I found it difficult to connect since having to give him back,’ the foster sister said.

Shortly after news broke in early September that a three-year-old child had gone missing in Donabate, the foster family were contacted by a social worker, who confirmed to them that it was Daniel Aruebose.

‘I don’t live at home any more but I am very close with my mother,’ said the foster sister. ‘She talks to me a lot. She rang me and asked where I was, and she was sobbing. She said, ‘”our baby is dead'”. I thought something else was going on at first and she said “no, it’s Danny, our baby, Danny”. Then it hit me and kind of registered. It took me a few seconds to understand what she was saying. I think we’re more angry than anything. How could this happen?’

She then added: ‘We didn’t want him to go [out of our care].’

After it was established in late August that Daniel had disappeared four years previously, both his mother and father were questioned on this whereabouts. The couple broke up around the time of his death but continued to live together for a while.

In social media posts from late 2022, Ciaran Dirrane was shown searching for his lost passport.

A few months later he shared a photograph from a plane as he left Ireland in 2023. He is now in a new relationship and living in Brazil.

He has been helping gardaí with their investigation from his new home and it’s been reported that both parents now claim their son died of natural but unexplained causes.

Officers were also told the location of where his body had been buried, but given the time lapse and circumstances, they were unable to pinpoint exactly where the shallow grave was. The area was sealed off and the gardaí and a forensic team launched a painstaking search of the landscape.

Despite Aruebose going to the site on a few occasions to try and show officers where the grave was, it took them almost three weeks to find the remains of Daniel’s body.

Around five days later it was revealed that the postmortem had failed to establish his cause of death.

It’s now feared that the two people of interest to the gardaí might only face charges of deception, for falsely claiming children’s welfare and unlawful burial of a child, if a cause of death is not determined.

‘If, say, the child had been smothered, drowned in a bath etc, they will not be able to discover that from skeletal remains,’ a source told the Irish Mail On Sunday. ‘If there are no injuries on the skeleton, all they might get them for is unlawful burial and deception. The deception charge could result in a jail sentence.’

More pathological tests are ongoing, and it’s hoped scans, including DNA and toxicology, will help determine if Daniel’s death was accidental, from natural causes or deliberate.

In the meantime, it’s been revealed that four years ago Aruebose advertised online for someone to ‘mind my child for a week while me and my partner are on holidays’.

The ad on suresitter.com was placed in the same year that Daniel went missing and stated that applicants ‘ideally must be garda vetted’. Offering a payment of €600 for the week, it also stated: ‘We also have a little dog that would also need minding. Feel free to message me if interested.’

Tusla has confirmed that from 2017 it engaged with Daniel at the request of his biological family and organised for him to be fostered. However, their dealings with him ceased in 2020 after his parents decided they would take care of him full-time.

Questions have been raised by fostering advocates about how ‘child-centred’ the current system is and whether the decision to return him to his birth parents was about their rights or Daniel’s best interests.

Tusla is now carrying out ‘well-being’ checks on around 42,000 children whose cases were closed during the Covid pandemic, a move that is expected to cost between €2.5 and €3million. It’s a small price to pay for the safety of possible ‘at risk’ children.

While it’s too late for Danny Aruebose, his tragic death must serve as a sharp lesson for those who hold the lives of our most vulnerable in their hands.