A three-month-old baby boy hospitalised after suffering injuries consistent with 'shaken baby syndrome' is to be released from hospital in the coming days.

Baby Devin remains in Temple Street Children's hospital after being admitted five weeks ago suffering from bleeding to the brain and
retina of one eye. Doctors fear that the youngster has suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the incident.

"He is awake and is eating and sleeping normally now," the infant's mother told the Sunday Tribune, who asked that her identity remain anonymous.

"The doctors don't know what brain damage there is yet but they say there will be some. I am more hopeful than they are about him."

The infant's mother told how she noticed a bruise on her son's face the day before she brought him to hospital and asked her Mauritian fiancé if anything had happened to the child the night before.

"I asked him if he had touched the child to try and calm him down the night before. I was out. He said he didn't know what had happened to him. I don't think he would have hurt him on purpose. If something did happen I think it was an accident," said the woman.

The following morning, the young mother brought Devin to her GP after she noticed he was having a seizure down one side of his body. The doctor told her to go immediately to Temple Street Children's hospital. "At the hospital they gave him a CT scan and an MRI scan and told me he had brain swelling and bleeding behind his eye.

The young woman has ended her relationship with the 28-year-old father of her child. "We were engaged but I've taken off the ring now. I still love him. We were together for a year. He came here on a student visa."

Detectives from Store Street garda station have launched an investigation and have interviewed both the baby's parents, who lived together in Dublin's north inner city.

Senior garda sources say there is little doubt that the baby was assaulted but say there were no witnesses to anything that might have occurred.

A file has been sent to the DPP who will determine if any charges should be brought.