Sharp rise in child abduction cases

Child abduction cases coming before Government soared last year, it was revealed today.

The Central Authority for Child Abduction, which investigates reported cases of children being illegally taken from or brought into the country, said it dealt with 141 cases involving 183 children.

That was compared to 99 cases the previous year.

The alleged abductions were almost equally split between reports of children being taken out of the country and reports from other countries of children being taken into Ireland.

The majority of applications were made under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, with 44% involving the United Kingdom.

Another 40% involved other European countries and 6% involved the USA.

The Central Authority for Child Abduction was set up to help return children who have been taken from one state to another against the wishes of a parent with custody rights.