Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

That is exactly the same for existing legislation pertaining to divorce and it has not been a problem. I refer the Deputy to the Supreme Court judgment in 2003 of T versus L, relating to the foreign divorce of a married couple who had emigrated to the Netherlands in 1988. The court concurred with the prior finding of the High Court that their Dutch divorce, obtained in 1994, was not recognised in Ireland on the basis that the husband's domicile was still in Ireland. In that judgment, Mr. Justice Keane remarked: "Evidence as to the form of residence in a foreign country so dependent on the particular personal circumstances of the person alleged to have been abandoned, a domicile of origin is very far removed from evidence of a fixed intention to make one's permanent home in a foreign country, which the authorities stipulate as the essential precondition to finding that a domicile of origin has been abandoned and a domicile of choice acquired." Unless there is a purposeful act of change of domicile, this legislation will apply to existing representatives working for the State abroad.

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