The High Court has refused a Brazilian father’s application to have his five-year-old son returned from Ireland to Brazil under the Hague Convention on international child abduction.
The child, identified only as L.G., was born in Ireland in June 2019 to a Brazilian father and Irish mother. The family lived in Ireland until September 2022, when they moved to Brazil. They returned to Ireland in January 2024. The father said this was intended as a short visit to the mother’s family. The mother disputed that account.
The agreed date of alleged wrongful retention was 15 May 2024, when the mother definitively refused to return to Brazil with the child.
Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell held that the father had not established that the child lost his pre-existing Irish habitual residence during the period in Brazil. The judge placed particular weight on the child’s young age, his mother being his primary carer, his lack of Portuguese, absence of preschool attendance and limited social connections outside the immediate family in Brazil.
The court also considered the alternative position in case that conclusion was wrong. On that basis, it found that the child had in any event become habitually resident in Ireland again between January and May 2024.
The child returned to familiar maternal family surroundings, attended preschool, spoke English, had a local GP and participated in community activities. His mother also reintegrated quickly into her previous environment in Ireland.
The father’s contrary intention remained relevant. The judge accepted that he viewed the Irish stay as temporary and had not consented to a permanent move. But parental intention was only one factor in the child-focused habitual-residence assessment.
The mother had also relied on Hague Convention defences of consent, acquiescence and grave risk. The court said the evidence did not meet the required threshold for any of those defences.
The application for return was refused. Final orders and any further redactions were left for a hearing on 22 May 2025.