I told gardai who took my boy 'please don't make him cry, don't make him upset'
Iancu Muntean (2) with his mum Loredaiva Sava and dad Iancu Muntean outside their home in Meadowbrook Estate, Athlone.
Louise Hogan – 24 October 2013 02:30 PM
THE parents of a blond-haired Roma boy have revealed they pleaded in distress that he was their son and offered to undergo a DNA test as he was taken from them overnight.
Iancu Muntean (22), a resident in Ireland since 2005, told how gardai came to his home late on Tuesday with questions over the identity of his two-and-a-half-year-old son Iancu Jnr.
Standing outside his home in a housing estate in Athlone, Co Westmeath, as his son played in the background, Mr Muntean told how his son was born in 2011 in Portiuncula Hospital in Ballinasloe and produced a birth certificate.
The father, and his girlfriend Loredaiva Sava (23), from Bucharest, Romania, mother of both Iancu Jnr and his sister Regina (4), were extremely distressed and unable to sleep after the boy was separated from the family overnight.
"I say to guards 'what make you take my baby?'" said Mr Muntean, adding he queried who was responsible for it. "When somebody take your kid you feel sick, you feel bad."
The father described being extremely confused as to why he was being questioned to the identity of his child. In addition to providing a passport and birth cert, the father-of-two said he also volunteered to undertake a DNA test.
"I was shocked but it is the guards. I said to guards 'you have power I don't have power'. What can I do? I don't make trouble," he said.
After going to the garda station at 7pm on Tuesday night, the father told how it was a number of hours before gardai told them they had to "take" his son for one night
He described how the gardai asked him if he had seen the case of the blonde-haired girl removed from a Roma family in Tallaght.
He replied he had not, adding gardai told him "in Tallaght they were taking people as well". Mr Muntean told them he didn't care about other incidents but insisted "this is my kid".
RELIEVED
He later agreed to let the child be kept overnight. He also asked to place the child in the car himself as he didn't want his son to cry as it made him ill.
"I said 'please don't make him cry, don't make him upset'. I put him in the car, I put the seatbelt on. I say 'please bring my son home, I'll give you whatever you want, just take me and my girlfriend away and not my son'," he pleaded.
I told gardai who took my boy 'please don't make him cry, don't make him upset' - Herald.ie