The Child Abduction and Enforcement of Custody Orders Act, 1991, gives the force of law to two international conventions — the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and the Luxembourg Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Decisions concerning Custody of Children and on Restoration of Custody of Children. The Hague Convention is designed to ensure the immediate return of children who have been abducted from one contracting state to another. It is aimed at securing the immediate return of children on the basis that the custody of a child should be decided by courts in the state in which the child habitually resides. The Luxembourg Convention gives a person who has a custody order the right to apply for that order to be recognised and enforced in the courts of another contracting state. Both conventions contain grounds for refusal by courts of applications for the return of children.
The conventions provide for the establishment of a central authority in each contracting state to administer the procedures involved. My Department operates as the central authority in the State. In the case of a child who has been abducted into the State, the central authority, acting on the foreign applicant's behalf, is obliged, inter alia, to arrange, if necessary, for court proceedings to secure the return of or access to the child. These proceedings take place in the High Court.
Obligations are imposed on contracting states under the Luxembourg Convention to provide free legal aid to applicants who have to initiate court proceedings for the return of a child. There is no obligation under the convention to provide legal aid to respondents. The Hague Convention imposes an obligation on contracting states to provide free legal aid to applicants, unless a contracting state has made a reservation indicating that legal aid will be provided only to the extent that it is covered by that state's system of legal aid and advice. In order to be consistent with the approach taken under the Luxembourg Convention, this country has not entered such a reservation. Again, as in the case of the Luxembourg Convention, the convention does not require that legal aid be given to respondents.
Since the coming into force of the conventions in the State on 1 October 1991, the Legal Aid Board has been requested to institute proceedings on behalf of an applicant on 35 occasions. I am informed by the board that in 22 of these cases the respondent has also sought legal aid, and that in all such cases legal aid was granted in good and sufficient time to allow the respondent to defend the proceedings. The position, therefore, is that no application for legal aid to defend proceedings under the 1991 Act has been refused, nor is the board aware of any case in which a respondent has been left without legal representation to defend proceedings under the 1991 Act.
