The Roma parents of a blond boy seized by gardai in 2013 during an investigation of possible child abduction have been awarded €60,000 in damages.
The High Court heard yesterday the state had agreed to pay the sum in compensation after conceding that gardai had employed prejudicial racial profiling when seizing the two-year-old child.
Gardai had removed the boy from his home in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and briefly placed him and a blonde girl from another Roma family in Tallaght into foster care in October 2013.
Police had acted on public tip-offs following unsubstantiated claims from across Europe that Roma were involved in child trafficking and abduction.
Lawyers representing Iancu and Loredaiva Muntean, the boy’s parents, and counsel for the state announced the settlement in the High Court yesterday.
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The couple had sued the minister for justice, the garda commissioner and the state for damages on grounds including alleged negligence, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional harm.
Their son, now four years old, was returned to his parents after one day in care after DNA tests established that he was their child.
A garda investigation into the controversy found officers had acted “in good faith” in seizing the children.
A separate report by the Children’s Ombudsman published last year, however, said ethnic profiling had played a role in the removal of the children from their parents. It concluded there was no well-founded suspicion or immediate emergency to justify the actions of gardai.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott approved the award as well as an application that some of the money should be made available to buy a computer for the boy.