Adoption of girl is quashed after dad objects
Wednesday October 07 2009
AN unmarried father has won a High Court order overturning the adoption, without his knowledge, of his eight- year-old daughter by his former partner's husband.
The matter will now go back to the Adoption Board which will have to consult with the father before reaching a decision on the adoption application.
The father had brought his proceedings against the board over its failure to notify him of the adoption application concerning his daughter, referred to as S.
The court heard the father had met the child's mother in 1999 when he was 19 and she was 15. Their child was born in early 2001. The mother claimed their relationship was fraught.
The father learned of the adoption order in late 2007.
The woman had met another man in 2003 whom she married in autumn 2005, the judge was told. They applied to adopt S and the adoption order was granted in June 2007. They also secured a new birth certificate in which the woman's husband was named as the father of S.
Quashing the adoption order of June 2007, Mr Justice Iarfhlaith O'Neill yesterday found the board acted unlawfully in allowing the adoption application proceed in July 2006 without notifying the father of it and hearing from him
The judge stressed his decision related only to the requirement to notify the father of the application, not whether the adoption order should be made or not.
- Tim Healy
Irish Independent
