Seanad debates
Thursday, 13 November 2003
Address by Ms Mary Banotti, MEP.
I understand I am to take questions when I finish, but I would like to talk to Senators a little about the issue of child abduction. It gets a great deal of tabloid press coverage, but it is quite a serious issue in our own country. On average, there are about 100 child abduction cases in Ireland every year. The interesting thing is that they are almost equally divided between children abducted into and abducted out of the country. The legislation that governs child abduction is known as The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. It is private international law, one of many pieces of The Hague Convention legislation. It is based on an agreement made by over 63 countries to accept a basic set of rules on child abduction. The central issue in the legislation is that the custody of a child be decided in the country where the child habitually resides. If we allowed children being taken from other countries to come home here, we could not expect them to send us back our children when they are taken elsewhere. That is the basic reasoning behind the legislation.
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