The natural father of a nine-year-old boy has been given leave by the High Court to challenge the refusal to correct an error in the register of births naming another man as the child's father.
In an affidavit, the Cork man said he was advised there was no specific statutory provision dealing with the re-registration of the birth of a child in circumstances where the wrong person has been named as that child's father.
He submitted there was a provision under section 27 of the Births and Deaths Registration (Ireland) Act 1980 to correct errors of fact and of substance. He said he was entitled to have a correction inserted in the margin of the register to the effect that he was the child's natural father.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly granted leave to the man to seek orders, by way of judicial review, quashing the refusal of the registrar general on December 21st, 1998, to correct the error on his son's birth certificate and compelling the registrar general to correct it.
In an affidavit, the applicant said he was the child's natural father. The child's mother was married to another man, who had since died, and she had entered that man's name on the child's birth certificate as the father. However, she since acknowledged that the applicant was the natural father of the child, he said.
He said that section 27 of the 1980 Act provided for the correction of errors. The registrar general had stated there was no procedure for dealing with corrections in order to re-register another person as the father of the child.