The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by Gideon Odum and three children against a deportation order, affirming the High Court’s decision. The Court found that the evidence did not establish a meaningful relationship between Mr Odum and the children capable of making deportation an impermissible interference with their constitutional rights to parental care and companionship.
The deportation order was made in June 2016 after Mr Odum applied for residency in Ireland. The children joined his judicial review challenge. The High Court dismissed their claim in November 2021. The Supreme Court granted leave to appeal in June 2022 and later decided to hear it even after the order was revoked, because the appeal raised a point of general public importance.
The Court held that non-citizen children can rely, through the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law, on rights to family life and parental care. Those rights must be considered in a deportation decision. But they do not give non-citizens the same entitlement as citizens to enter or remain in the State. The Court said that unusually weighty and wholly exceptional circumstances would be needed to prevent the deportation of a person whose presence was unlawful.
In this case, the High Court judge had examined the evidence and found no meaningful relationship. The Supreme Court said that conclusion was justified. The evidence included Mr Odum’s affidavit, which said he saw the children weekly, prepared food or took them out, and kept in phone contact. The Court considered those claims too general: the affidavit gave little detail about the relationship or the likely impact of separation, and there was no supporting affidavit from the children’s mother or other professional or anecdotal evidence about the relationship and its effect on them.
The Court also noted gaps and inconsistencies in information supplied during the immigration process, including conflicting addresses and a discrepancy about when Mr Odum and the children’s mother separated. A District Court order appointed him joint guardian, but the accompanying consent did not set out access arrangements.
The Court concluded that the evidence did not show a real, meaningful relationship that could make deportation an impermissible interference with the children’s constitutional rights. It dismissed the appeal and affirmed the High Court order. The judgment did not reinstate the deportation order, which had already been revoked.