DNA sampling has been around for years – why the long wait for a test?

THERE are a number of crucial questions that have arisen since gardaí revealed their DNA profiling of the baby involved in one of Ireland’s most grotesque and disturbing criminal investigations.

The fact that DNA sampling has been available and helping to solve mysteries for over 20 years now begs the question – why now?

Why has it taken An Garda Síochána all this time to finally, and conclusively, resolve the 34-year-old question as to whether Baby John and Joanne Hayes’s child were twins?

One would be justified in speculating that gardaí in Kerry have recently received information which propelled them to reopening the files on this appalling chapter in Garda history.

Joanne Hayes was treated appallingly by the State and it is only right that both the Taoiseach and gardaí have apologised.

Let us recap on the preposterous theory that was put forward at the time to explain away the gaping holes in the case – superfecundation. It suggested that twins could be born to the same woman but have two separate fathers.

The Garda cold case unit is now involved in ‘inviting’ the people of the area who were alive and of a certain age at that time to voluntarily give a sample of their own DNA in a bid to rule them out and hone in on the identity of the child. It is highly unlikely that the two people in the world – the father and mother of Baby John – who have harboured this dark secret for so many years, are going to volunteer their own samples in this inquiry.

But a process of elimination could inadvertently lead to their identities, purely as a result of analysing the DNA of one of their living relatives.

However, this creates a whole new set of difficult and potentially insurmountable problems for the gardaí. How do they approach the parents purely as a result of such an accidental lead?

Unless the gardaí have exceptionally strong grounds to suspect that they know the identities of the parents, then they cannot make any arrests – but even more importantly, they cannot demand a DNA sample.

With strong circumstantial evidence, there may be suspects for a murder – or else the culprit may already be dead.

One of the most positive things to come out of this so far is that finally, the 34-year ordeal suffered by an innocent and intensely private woman, and her family, has been concluded. Her irrefutable vindication has been secured.

Apologies aside, it seems highly unlikely this decades-old mystery will be resolved any time soon.