I assume the Deputy is referring to the problem of the wrongful removal of children from the State by a parent or the improper retention of children abroad by a parent.
The possibility of recovering a child in these cases has improved greatly in recent years. The credit for this goes to the operation of two international conventions, the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and a Council of Europe Convention on child custody which were given the force of law in the State by the Child Abduction and Enforcement of Custody Orders Act, 1991. Prior to that legislation there were no formal arrangements whereby rights of custody of parents in the State could be recognised or enforced in another state.
The Hague Convention contains judicial and administrative measures to secure the return of a child on the basis that the custody of a child should be decided in the courts of the place where the child habitually resides. The Luxembourg Convention contains measures designed to ensure that custody orders made by the courts in a contracting state are, subject to conditions, recognised and enforced in other contracting states. Forty-four countries worldwide, including all our EU partners, the USA and Canada, are party to one or both of those conventions.
The conventions provide for the establishment of a central authority in each contracting state to carry out functions which are specified in the conventions. All central authorities are obliged to initiate steps to trace a child, to seek the child's return or secure access to the child, to arrange, if necessary, for court proceedings to secure the return of, or access to, the child, to collate and send to other central authorities information about the child.
The central authority which operates in my Department for the purposes of both conventions has received full co-operation from other central authorities in securing the return of children who have been removed from the State. The Deputy will appreciate that I could not undertake, in reply to questions, to discuss the details of any particular cases. I say that in the knowledge that from time to time some cases of child abduction get considerable publicity.
The total number of cases dealt with in 1996 by our central authority was 114. Of that figure 51 were abductions into the State and 63 were abductions from the State. In 12 of those 51 cases of abductions into the State the court ordered the return of the children concerned; in eight cases the court refused to return the children; in nine cases the parties reached agreement; one case was for the recognition of a care order; one case was outside the scope of the convention concerned; 12 applications were withdrawn and 18 cases were awaiting resolution at the end of the year.
In 17 of the 63 cases of abductions from the State foreign courts ordered the return of the children; in five cases the foreign courts refused to return the children; in 15 cases the parties reached agreement; one case was outside the scope of the convention concerned; ten applications were withdrawn and 15 cases were awaiting resolution at the end of the year.
The operation of both conventions is the subject of regular review under the auspices of the relevant international organisations, namely the Hague Conference on Private International Law and the Council of Europe. Both conventions provide specifically for those reviews and my Department has participated in them.