A doctor is to be questioned by police after her 11-year-old disabled daughter Emily was found dead at the family home in Offaly.

Dr Bernadette Scully was found unconscious when her partner returned to the gruesome discovery in Tullamore.

Police say Emily’s death is ‘suspicious’ as they wait to question the doctor who is currently fighting for her life in intensive care.

Dr Scully’s distraught partner, a music composer, is being comforted by family and friends.

Detectives are waiting on the results of a toxicology report to help establish how the little girl died.

They believe her 55-year-old mother has information which could explain what took place on Saturday night.

The Irish Independent reports that detectives are not seeking to talk to anybody else at this stage of the investigation.

Dr Scully is in a critical, but stable condition in Tullamore General Hospital and may not be interviewed by detectives for several days.

The dead girl suffered from severe disabilities and in recent weeks had been in extreme pain and distress following further surgery.

Local sources told the paper that her mother had been agonising about the child’s future and had taken a break from her doctor’s practice to help look after Emily.

Police hope that toxicology tests will indicate how the girl died and until they have received the results, they are treating her death as suspicious.

The report says the child, who was wheelchair bound, suffered from profound physical and mental disabilities since birth.

Dr Scully’s Lithuanian partner Andrius Kozlovskis made a distress call to emergency services after he made the grim find.

Friends told the paper that the doctor, who is separated from the child’s father, was a ‘devoted mother to Emily’.

One family friend said: “She had taken time off work lately to be with Emily all the time, the child was very unwell.

“Emily’s health had been very bad, she was being fed through a tube and Bernie was a wonderful mother to her.

“She loved Emily so much. She was so good to her child - she adored her and lavished her with love, affection and attention since the moment she was born.

“She would have cared for Emily until she was 100, she was absolutely devoted to her. The only word to describe Bernie Scully is an angel.

“There was nobody better to their child than her. We’re absolutely devastated for her.”