A lesbian couple have lost an appeal against a High Court refusal to allow them take a 14-month-old baby born to one of them by artificial insemination out of the State.
In a dissenting Supreme Court judgement, Mr Justice Nial Fennelly said the case was "utterly unique and unprecedented" and found the father's only relationship with the child was as a sperm donor.
But Mrs Susan Denham and Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan upheld the High Court's finding that the child's interests were best served by remaining in contact with his father, with whom a relationship had been established since birth.
The father was a donor by agreement with the couple who later undertook a civil union ceremony in the United Kingdom. The child was born in May 2006, and initially the father had regular visits and was by agreement to be regarded as a "favourite uncle" to the baby.
However, the couple then wanted the father to have a more formal and distanced relationship with the child and reduced his access.
When he learned the child was to be taken on holiday to Australia where the couple were considering relocating, he applied for an injunction preventing the trip.
The High Court refused the application but stipulated that the child be brought back to Ireland after six weeks and its passports be lodged with the High Court. Various authorities here and in the North were to be informed the child was not allowed to travel again pending a High Court ruling.
The birth mother, an Australian, wanted to travel with the baby and her partner to Australia so the child could spend more time with her family. It was submitted her mother was too ill to travel to Ireland.
The father also sought guardianship and joint custody, but this matter has not been heard. Mrs Justice Denham stressed her ruling "should not be inferred as presuming rights for the applicant [father]".
The Supreme Court found the mother is "sole guardian of the child and has her natural constitutional rights and is entitled to custody of the child to the exclusion of all persons".
However, the child's interest took precedence the court ruled, and it refused permission to take the child away for a year because of the effect it could have on it bonding with its father.
Mr Justice Fennelly found the only relationship the father had with the baby was as a sperm donor.
Such was the complexity and novelty of the case, the judge said he had not drawn a conclusion on the merits of the arguments brought before the High Court.
But he found that, in granting the injunction, the court had made a decision that amounted to a conclusion on the substantive issue of the couple's rights versus the father's.
The father bore the burden of proof in relation to the baby's best interests but had not discharged this responsibility before the High Court, Mr Justice Fennelly found.
"The applicant has not shown, by means of expert or any other evidence, that the welfare of the child will be jeopardised or compromised by his being taken to Australia for the proposed [period] of just short of one year.
Mr Justice Fennelly also regarded the mother's partner as "having no natural relationship with the child", with rights only arising from the mother's relation to the baby.