Attorney General Rory Brady is to take High Court proceedings against the parents of Tristan Dowse in a bid to clarify the legal position of the adopted three-year-old who is in an orphanage in Indonesia.
Mr Brady will seek an order from the High Court to compel Joe and Lala Dowse to take care of the boy under constitutional provisions relating to the family.
The case is being taken in the hope that the couple will then take legal action to deregister the adoption in Ireland, freeing up the Irish and Indonesian authorities to find a solution relating to the legal quagmire involving the boy and to enable him to be readopted in Indonesia.
The Attorney General is acting in his constitutional capacity to represent the rights of a citizen. Although he is in Indonesia, Tristan is an Irish citizen and the holder of an Irish passport.
But the Attorney General cannot seek to have the adoption struck out.
The adoption can only be deregistered by the High Court on foot of an application by the adoptive parents of the child, and which is seen by the court to be in the best interest of the child.
Last month solicitor Gus Cullen, who is representing the Dowses, indicated that they planned to take a legal action to have the adoption annulled and that Joe and Lala Dowse would "facilitate any procedures that are in Tristan's best interest".
He said he was awaiting reports from the Adoption Board and the Department of Foreign Affairs before taking the High Court case. Although it did not come to public attention until last April the Government had been aware of Tristan's case for more than a year.
Discussions between officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Adoption Board, the Indonesian authorities and representatives of the Dowse family have failed to find a solution to the case.
Each side has claimed it has done everything possible to push the case forward, and each has cited problems with the other parties as being the main block to a solution.
In April the Adoption Board sent a social worker and senior official to Indonesia to expedite the case, while Irish Ambassador to Singapore Hugh Swift also flew to Jakarta to hold talks with representatives of the Indonesian government.
Tristan was adopted by the Dowses when he was two months old back in 2001, and remained with the couple for two years.
He was then placed in the care of an orphanage in Jakarta after the couple said the adoption did not work out, and just after Ms Dowse had given birth to another child.
The Dowses have since moved from Indonesia to Azerbaijan, where Ms Dowse, a doctor, is from.
After his case became public Tristan was moved from the Jakarta orphanage to a facility run by Indonesian authorities.
Tristan, who can only speak English, is currently in a precarious legal situation, as he is not an Indonesian citizen.