A 4 year old girl and her 7 year old brother are in care this evening following allegations that their mother and father repeatedly sexually abused them.

In a DVD interview shown to the court, the children's 11 year old brother told a specially trained garda that his father beat him and once spiked him in the arm with a needle.

He said he witnessed both his mother and father sexually abuse his younger siblings when they were around 2 and 4 years of age.

On one occasion he said he intervened and told his mother to abuse him instead of his sister. He also described instances of neglect where he was forced to eat faeces with ketchup.

While the 11 year old boy has been in care for over a year, he only made these disclosures last month to a specialist garda interview who described the claims as credible and amongst the most extreme she had ever heard.

In the interests of the younger children's safety, District Court judge Colin Daly has ordered that they be placed in the care of the Child and Family Agency for the next 28 days while steps are taken to assess the credibility of the claims and the risk posed by the parents.

Explaining why he believed the children could not be safeguarded at home, the judge said he had ' reasonable cause to believe' that the alleged abuse happened at a time when the family was under the supervision of the state, with more supports than are currently in place.

The parents strenuously deny all allegations of abusing their children and contested the CFA's attempts to secure an interim care order over the past 5 weeks.

The children's mother admitted that there was domestic violence at home but said it was not 'all the time'.

The allegations are being investigated by gardai.