Gardaí are expected to launch a murder inquiry after the death of a two-year-old boy in south Dublin.

The child had been the subject of a nationwide safety alert and Garda search when the authorities became concerned for his safety recently.

That incident ended peacefully after the child was found safe and well.

However, the apparent murder of the same child this afternoon is likely to bring into sharp focus how concerns for him were handled by the authorities in recent months.

Gardaí are trying to trace the boy’s father, a foreign national in his early 60s, to inform him his son was dead.

The boy had sustained wounds in an attack at an apartment the Ridge Hall complex on the Shanganagh Road, near Ballybrack, earlier today.

Gardaí were called to the complex after the alarm was raised shortly before 2pm by a woman known to the dead boy’s family.

Another woman who was at the scene at the time was arrested and has been taken for questioning to Dún Laoghaire Garda Station.

The child was pronounced dead at the scene by a doctor who was called to the property by the gardaí.

The child’s remains were still at the property this evening pending the arrival of a pathologist for the State Pathologist’s Office.

A preliminary examination of the remains was due to be carried out at the scene before the body was due for removal for a full post mortem to establish the cause of death.

However, while Garda sources stressed the investigation was still in its first hours, the child had suffered a wound and there was blood at the scene.

While the case was being treated as a suspicious death, all of the resources of a murder inquiry were being applied to the investigation.

Garda sources said they expected the investigation to be upgraded to a murder probe when the results of the post mortem were known; likely tomorrow morning.

The scene will undergo a forensic examination by members of the Garda Technical Bureau, which was due to get underway this evening.

Earlier this year when the boy was reported missing, a Child Rescue Ireland (CRI) alert was issued. These notices are issued in cases where children are believed to have been abducted and when there is believed to be a serious threat to their safety.

However, a very short period after the alert was issued via the media and across electronic roadside signs controlled by the Garda, the boy was found safe and well with his father.

There was no suggestion he had been harmed or that there was intent to harm him and the alert was effectively a false alarm.