The four-year-old disabled Romanian girl due to be returned to Bucharest this morning has been allowed stay with her foster family in Dundalk, it has been reported.
Miheala Porumbaru has been fostered by Mrs Brid Hughes since the Dundalk woman visited the Romanian orphanage she lived at in 1999.
Speaking on RTE news this evening Mrs Hughes said her solicitor had resolved a dispute with officials at the orphanage, who had demanded the return of the little girl because of a dispute over her visa. Mrs Hughes said she was "delighted" with the outcome and said she now wanted to adopt the young girl.
Miheala was due to leave Belfast International Airport for Romania at 9 a.m. this morning. It is understood officials at the Romanian orphanage changed an earlier decision to let her stay in Ireland for medical treatment.
She was returned to her foster family's home earlier today because of a reported problem with airline tickets and is now scheduled to fly to Romania early tomorrow morning.
Earlier today the Romanian embassy in Dublin said today it did not know which orphanage Miheala came from and said staff "don’t know why she was allowed come here".
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Mr Bogdan Buchur, First Secretary at the embassy told
ireland.com
the little girl could have come from any one of the thousands of orphanages in Romania.
He said the emabassy did not have any authority to intervene in the "private agreement" made between the girl’s foster parents and the Romanian state orphanage.
The Department of Justice said earlire today it understood the girl's visa - valid until November - did not cover medical treatment arranged for her by her foster mother.
A spokesman told ireland.comit was important to remember that until Miheala was legally adopted she remained the responsibility of the Romanian state.
This evening, however, the embassy made it known it would assist Mrs Hughes to find out who was legally responsible for Miheala.
Earlier today Fine Gael spokesman on justice Mr Alan Shatter TD called for clarification of the "unusual" circumstances surrounding Miheala's early removal from her foster care.
Miheala’s foster mother Mrs Hughes was told yesterday evening the commission in charge of the orphanage where the girl had lived was demanding her return to Romania today.
Speaking on RTE’s Morning Ireland programme earlier today, a distraught Mrs Hughes said: "She left here at 7.15 a.m. and was very upset leaving; she didn’t want to get up or to go. She’s gone to the International Airport in Belfast to get the 9 a.m. flight to Romania . . . I hope somebody will help".
Mihaela was abandoned at birth after being crushed into a cardboard box outside a hospital in Bucharest.
Mrs Hughes believes that being forced into the box as a baby may have caused the spinal injuries that have left her paralysed from the waist down.