The High Court ordered Údarás Uchtála na hÉireann to pay the costs of two applicants who sought to have a child registered in Ireland’s Register of Inter-Country Adoptions. The ruling, delivered by Mr Justice Abbott on 16 October 2015, gave reasons for a costs order following an earlier judgment on the applicants’ claim for relief.
The applicants had brought the child to Ireland after an adoption process in M. The judgment said that process had been found inadequate under the Hague Convention and the Adoption Act 2010. The authority wanted to help resolve the registration difficulty but, after receiving a third-party notice from the M. Embassy, was unable to offer a realistic solution. The judge said he attached little or no blame to the authority, given concerns about other adoption activity in M. that did not relate to this case.
The authority argued that the applicants’ success resulted from submissions by the Attorney General about possible vested rights under legislation repealed by the 2010 Act, rather than from the applicants’ own arguments. It also argued that, if the applicants were entitled to costs, they should receive only part of them because other arguments had not succeeded.
The judge rejected that position. He said the applicants had raised the vested-rights argument and had advanced other arguments that helped frame the issue for the court. Their submissions had significantly assisted the court, and reducing their costs would unfairly disregard that contribution. The judge also found there was a single outcome in the case, so the more detailed approach to multiple or linked outcomes discussed in *Veolia Water UK Plc v Fingal County Council (No. 2)* did not apply.
The court said the applicants had no realistic option but to seek a court determination after the authority could not resolve the problem. Although the application was made under section 92 of the 2010 Act as an application for directions, the judge treated the outcome sought as registration of the adoption. He said the applicants would also have been entitled to their costs on public-interest grounds, given the importance of clarifying how the Hague Convention operated in practice.
The Attorney General had made submissions under section 92(7) without being joined as a party. The judge was reluctant to order costs against the Attorney General, noting that the section allows submissions without party status and that the Attorney General should ordinarily be joined as a party if costs liability is to be argued. He concluded that the authority, as a public body, was the more appropriate party to bear the costs.
The applicants were legally aided. The judge said this did not change the costs decision; the order was made on the understanding that the Legal Aid Board would be repaid under the relevant legislation.