Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to speak on the Family Courts Bill 2022. I broadly welcome the Bill and its intention to provide for the establishment of a family High Court, family Circuit Court and family District Court.

This legislation is well overdue and I have been following its progression for a long time now as a member of the justice committee. There is no doubt that Ireland is an outlier. Unlike many other European countries, we do not have a specialised family law court system, with cases concerning children mainly heard in the general courts by judges who do not specialise in family or child law. There is an obvious and real need for a new and specialised family law court system and the Bill aims to address this.

As it currently stands, the District Court has jurisdiction to hear family law proceedings relating to domestic violence, guardianship, maintenance and childcare. The Circuit Court has concurrent jurisdiction with the High Court in the area of family law and can hear proceedings in a wide range of family law proceedings, including judicial separation, divorce and nullity. The High Court can hear proceedings including judicial separation, divorce, nullity, child abduction and adoption. This Bill will bring about important reforms to the family justice system that will make progress in addressing the deficiencies in the existing system, which was not designed with families, or children in particular, in mind.

A survey of front-line court staff conducted by the family law reform programme team gave a very interesting insight into the state of the current family law system. It showed that 61% of staff felt that the court buildings do not support people in the family law process and 90% of staff felt technology was not being used in the best way to support people either. Overall, the findings show that staff felt that the current system was not best supporting the broader needs that families have.

Having to deal with the judicial system can be stressful for families who are often already experiencing distress in their lives. It is so important that families and children feel safe, supported and heard throughout the process. It is for this reason that I am broadly supporting this legislation today.

I welcome section 8, which provides the guiding principles that underpin this legislation. It ensures that where proceedings involve the welfare of a child, the best interests of the child are a primary consideration. The child is to be kept informed in an age-appropriate manner and the views of the child are ascertained and given due weight, having regard to the age and maturity of the child. It is vitally important that the rights of the child are protected in family law proceedings and that children feel that their voices are important and their input heard.

Ensuring that children are given the opportunity to express themselves and that the voice of the child is properly heard requires sufficient staffing and funding. Our current justice system already lacks adequate funding and is failing to meet its current standards. The Minister for Justice must ensure that with this legislation comes significant funding to ensure it can be enacted fully and properly. A well-resourced and efficient legal system is crucial to ensuring access to justice, in particular for families and children. Without a properly resourced system, children will not enjoy this right to be heard.

Concerns in respect of cost and accessibility were raised at the justice committee. One of the committee’s recommendations in the 2019 report stated: “If the constitutional aspiration that the voice of the child be heard is to be made reality, there is a need to establish a State panel of experts who would be available to the courts to produce a report within a reasonable timeframe." It is so important that this recommendation is taken seriously. I have raised the issue of implementation multiple times over the past few years. We can introduce the best legislation in the world, but it will not matter if we are not serious about implementing it.

I echo the concerns of some NGOs regarding this legislation. This relates to the alternative dispute resolution, ADR. I agree that there is something difficult about this for women and children - it is mainly women - and we need to find a way to protect them. I urge the Minister to use whatever amending power there is to do that. While the ADR process is positive in terms of reducing the costs and making the system more accessible, that cannot be at the expense of safety in some cases, in particular cases where there is domestic violence. The Minister, while outlining the principles included in Part 2, said that where domestic violence may be an issue and ADR mechanisms may not be appropriate, her intention is to minimise the risk. I do not see in the actual legislation where those parts are and how that risk will be minimised. That is vitally important. Perhaps the Minister will expand on that in her concluding remarks. That would be useful.

As has been outlined by previous speakers, it is daunting for people to go into court and the court system because they are not familiar with it. It is not something they are used to. For somebody in an abuse situation or a person who is under threat from their ex-partner, it can be an even more daunting situation. Ensuring the proper mechanisms are used for dealing with those cases, where that protection can be in place, is vitally important.

I welcome the legislation and thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle and all Deputies for the broad support for this Bill. I think we all agree there needs to be an overhaul of our family court structures or a change to how they operate. While I firmly believe a huge number of wonderful people work in the system, from our Judiciary to legal practitioners, those in the courts and beyond, we need to put in place the building blocks and structure to allow the courts to be more family- and child-friendly and allow for mediation where issues can be resolved outside of the courts. As public representatives, we have seen many people come through our doors going through very difficult relationship breakups or breakdowns, involving children or not. Often, once it gets to the courts, it becomes even more adversarial. We need to make sure they are not waiting in a line and that they are not put to the end of the queue at the end of the day or are waiting months for access to the courts to deal with challenging situations. Where there is a dispute or where the has been abuse in a relationship, it is clear the courts are often used to further that abuse through long waits or delays, use of the in camera rule or many other avenues. The objective of this Bill is to make sure we have family courts with judges who are specialists in family law matters, who continue to upskill and train, and who want to be part of the family justice system, and where courts sit on different days with separate sittings and structures are in place. Work still needs to be done in that regard. The development of Hammond Lane will ensure we have a purpose-built family law complex, taking away the current situation in which people who may have been in an adversarial position may sit looking at each other before they into the court and the challenges that brings to finding an easy solution to that conflict. I assure Deputy Pringle that I have engaged with NGOs on issues of concern around domestic violence, abuse, coercive control or other types of abuse and that those are the changes we made in the Seanad in the past two weeks. I think it is on page 14 of the Bill. I would have to take a moment to find the exact language but I can show him afterwards. The language makes it clear that, if there are concerns on the part of the principal judge or others that dispute resolution would not be appropriate, the mechanisms are there to prevent that from being used.

Concerns have been raised about certain proceedings going to the District Court but it is very clear that, if a case is extremely complex with a lot of strands, it can be referred from the District Court to the Circuit or High Court. If a case is straightforward and the parties have for the most part agreed, there is no reason it should not go to the District Court. We have to, insofar as possible, make this as quick as we can for people. The longer these cases go on, often the more difficult they become, but there is also the cost this puts on people. I met a gentleman recently who spent €100,000 going through the courts trying to find a solution to the challenges he and his partner faced, with a child was also involved. Both sides need to be heard and listened to, but if it can be done in a way that is cost efficient and much quicker, that is what we are trying to achieve.

Deputy Durkan mentioned the issue of parental alienation, and I know is very passionate about it. It not a legally recognised concept here, but that is not say it is not being used or part of the overall conversation in courts or outside them. The most important thing we can do to deal with the issue of such a conflict in a relationship is to make sure our court system works and operates efficiently and effectively, that people have access to justice or the courts in a timely manner and that appropriate structures are in place. That is where the family justice strategy is important. The family court puts the building blocks, structure and framework in place, and all the other elements of the family justice strategy complement that. We have voice of the child and welfare reports for the first time, which was mentioned and which work has already started. There will be a structure in place that if a report is commissioned, its parameters, who commissioned or did the report and if they have the right qualifications will be known and people do not face the costly burden of paying for those reports. There is a review of the in camera rule at the moment. It has been relayed clearly to me, particularly when there is abuse in a relationship, that the in camera rule allows that abuse to continue. We need to look at that as a whole to see if changes are needed. There is also a voice of child review on top of the changes to voice of child reports and welfare reports I mentioned. That work is ongoing.

On child maintenance, a body of work has already been done by my Department with the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Humphreys, and recommendations have already been acted upon. They included developing a set of child maintenance guidelines, strengthening attachment earning orders and looking at attaching an order to a PPS number rather than an employer. We are seeing that when somebody leaves a job and moves onto the next, it is easier for the person to evade payment and more difficult for the payment to be obtained. We need to make sure it follows the person not where they work and to ensure there is a single enforcement procedure, a simple bench warrant process, and that we allow deductions from the paying parent's bank account. Work is already happening with child maintenance. It is one of the biggest issues in terms of the challenges of going through the courts and where there is a breakdown and matters are not going as well as people would like.

These structures are important. I hope that, in the amendments we brought to the Seanad in recent weeks in particular, we have addressed any concerns that we are trying to pigeonhole cases into the District Court and that we are not giving proper regard to some of the more challenging cases. I hope the amendments clearly show that cases will be heard in the most appropriate court, whether that is the District, Circuit or High Court. The most important thing is that families are allowed to enter into a process that is less adversarial, does not make a situation worse, can be dealt with quickly, where children's voices are front and centre for the first time, and it will not cost people their life savings, home or anything else, which we often see happening when this goes on for so long. I thank Deputies for their contributions. I look forward to engaging with them in the coming weeks and, I hope, seeing this Bill enacted as soon as possible.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Congratulations to everyone involved.