The Supreme Court has set aside a High Court judgment concerning the adoption of two anonymised children brought from “Country A” to Ireland, ruling that the Adoption Authority could not make domestic adoption orders for them. Justice John MacMenamin said the Authority had to treat the matter as a non-compliant inter-country adoption under the Adoption Act 2010 and the Hague Convention.
The case reached the Supreme Court through a statutory case stated by the Adoption Authority, followed by a direct appeal. The High Court had answered that the Authority had jurisdiction to make adoption orders and that the children were eligible for adoption under section 23. MacMenamin J disagreed and substituted answers to the questions referred. The Court’s judgment does not itself recognise or register the Country A adoption, and does not make adoption orders for the children.
The judgment says the couple’s first contact with the Authority was in June 2011, when they sought information about inter-country adoption. According to affidavits whose evidence had not been tested in court, an HSE social worker later advised them that they could not adopt identified children from another Convention country. MacMenamin J said that advice was incorrect in their circumstances. The applicants then pursued an adoption in Country A without the required processing by the central authorities in Ireland and Country A. The court found that key Convention procedures were not followed, including assessments and the placement approval and certificate processes.
The children arrived in Ireland with the couple in April 2012. They had lived with them for more than six years by the time of the judgment. The court noted that the children saw the couple as their parents, and that no party proposed sending them back to Country A. The Authority did not allege dishonesty, but argued that allowing a domestic adoption after an inter-country adoption would undermine the Convention’s safeguards.
MacMenamin J said the Authority had no jurisdiction under the relevant sections to make domestic adoption orders. He also said the prior common-law approach in *MF v An Bord Uchtála* no longer applied to inter-country adoptions. The children’s original status remained because the Country A adoption could not be recognised by the Authority, though that did not rule out a proceeding under section 92.
As a possible route forward, MacMenamin J proposed that the Authority first contact Country A’s central authority to explore whether defects could be remedied within a set period. If that did not resolve the matter, he said a High Court might, in exceptional circumstances and if satisfied on the evidence and law, direct registration under section 92. That would require further legal steps; the Supreme Court did not order registration. The judgment allowed the appeal and set aside the High Court order, while leaving those possible routes conditional.