LIFE ADVICE Worried your ex could take your child overseas?

I am worried my daughter will disappear

Family Law
Bríd Manifold

I have recently separated from my girlfriend. We have a two-year-old baby daughter. My girlfriend is not Irish, and I am really worried that she may decide to move back to her own country. What can I do about this?

As unmarried fathers are not recognised legally in Ireland, none of the international conventions and regulations on child abduction can offer an unmarried Irish father any protection. Therefore, the most immediate step to be taken is to secure a legal relationship with the child by applying to the District Court to be appointed a guardian.
The vast majority of such applications are successful. Once your application has been made, even before a hearing, you come under the international protection.
In circumstances where there is a real threat of removal from the State, you should apply also for an order for access to your child, an order in respect of retention of the child’s passport and an order restraining the removal of the child from the jurisdiction. All of these applications can be made together in the District Court under the Guardianship of Infants Act. Typically, where the court considers that there is a risk of abduction, it will order the surrender of the passport to a solicitor or to the District Court office itself.
In relation to the passport, before a court order has been obtained you can write to the Passport Office and request that a passport not be issued without notification to you. Where there is a possibility of dual citizenship, you should also write to the non-Irish Embassy requesting that a passport not be issued without notification to you. The Embassy may or not oblige. An Irish court can make an order seeking the surrender of a foreign passport also.
You should also immediately notify the Gardaí of an abduction risk, as they have limited powers to detain a child who they believe is being abducted.
There is a Central Authority in each country to facilitate the return of abducted children. Where a child has been removed from Ireland without your consent, to the EU or a country which has signed the Hague Convention, you can apply to the Irish Central Authority for Child Abduction, Department of Justice, for legal representation. The Central Authority provides similar assistance to a parent abroad whose child has been removed to Ireland and services again are provided by the Legal Aid Board. All child abduction cases are treated as a matter of urgency, and the Central Authority does not charge for its services.
Applications for the return of children should be made very quickly, as delay can defeat an application – the longer a child has resided in a new country, the more reluctant a court would be to return the child. In general, you can say a child will be returned to their habitual place of residence, where the court will consider the matters of custody and access, unless to return the child would subject them to grave risk.
Where a child has been removed to a country that is not signed up to any of the international conventions and is outside the EU, you should contact the Department of Foreign Affairs. Abductions to non-Hague countries tend to be harder for all involved, as the left-behind parent may need to start legal proceedings in the local courts, if they cannot come to an agreement with the other parent concerning custody and access. Foreign Affairs can give you a list of overseas lawyers who speak English and may be specialists in family law. However, it cannot pay any legal fees or offer legal advice. While it may be able to offer some assistance in checking with Immigration in the foreign country and with Interpol, it cannot ‘rescue’ a child or become involved in illegal attempts to return your child to Ireland.
You should apply also to The Irish Centre for Parentally Abducted Children for a ‘Prevention Pack’, in which you can include details of your child, such as DNA samples, photographs and description. This information should be kept updated and will be useful to the authorities in the unfortunate event of an abduction.

Bríd Manifold is a family-law solicitor and mediator based in Galway City. Her monthly columns will cover a range of family-law and mediation issues. Email your questions in confidence to Brid at familylaw@mayonews.ie.