The High Court has confirmed that Irish guardianship and custody orders concerning three children remain valid, while ruling that it does not have jurisdiction to make new parental-responsibility orders now that the children are living abroad.
Ms Justice Nuala Jackson delivered judgment on 12 February 2026 in an anonymised family-law case involving parents identified as J.J.K.L. and M.N.
The family had lived in Ireland, where the youngest of the three children was born. The children attended Irish schools and medical services before leaving the State with their mother in or about March 2024. They subsequently lived in several countries outside the EU, none identified in the published judgment.
The father had already begun District Court proceedings seeking guardianship and access before the children left Ireland. On 30 May 2024, the District Court appointed him joint guardian with the mother and granted him access. A further order made on 10 March 2025 awarded him sole custody. None of those orders was appealed, varied or reviewed.
The High Court declared that those orders remain valid and permitted them, along with its own judgment, to be disclosed in foreign or domestic proceedings concerning the children. The judge stressed, however, that the father was not yet a guardian when the children were removed from Ireland because the guardianship order operated prospectively only.
The father also sought wider directions concerning the children. Ms Justice Jackson held that the High Court could not make those orders because, by the time these proceedings began in November 2025, the children had been living abroad for more than a year and were no longer habitually resident in Ireland.
The court also declined to make orders against state bodies or other third parties which were not parties to the proceedings.
An earlier interim order was vacated. The judge expressed concern for the children’s welfare but said the court could act only within its jurisdictional limits.