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DESPITE AN ANNOUNCEMENT in 2013 that there would be referendum to establish a new Family Court, the Department of Justice has stated that a vote to amend the Constitution is not now considered necessary.
The former Minister for Justice Alan Shatter said last year that a referendum would be held in 2014 to “establish a dedicated and integrated Family Court structure to meet the needs of the people”.
However, it is now believed that a Family Court can be set up by legislation rather than a constitutional amendment.
Barnardos has called on the Government to deliver on its promises to implement a court structure for family matters, stating that the system as it stands is “not adequate”.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, June Tinsley of Barnados said that the District and Circuit courts were overburdened, adding that the a new court system must be rolled out.
The department said they are in consultation with the judiciary and the Attorney General, with the aim of publishing a general scheme for the Family Law Courts Bill this autumn and of enacting the Bill in the first half of 2015.
Less costly
Responding to TheJournal.ie, the Department of Justice and Equality said that it is in the Programme for Government to establish a family law court that is “streamlined, more efficient and less costly”.
The idea is to have a two-tier system staffed with specialist judges.
The department said they initiated a consultation process with interested parties in relation to the establishment of family courts and, in that regard, hosted a seminar in July 2013 to discuss how such courts might be structured and operated.
Speaking at that seminar, Shatter said that new court should be entirely separate and should be in different venues. Currently, family law cases are held in special court offices in Dublin, but regionally, they are held in District Courts on certain days of the month.
Shatter wanted the new court to have adequate private consultation rooms and a co-located welfare and assessment service, as well as court mediation facilities.
However, he warned that establishing such a court could take years.
Consultation
The department said it is currently developing a strategy to support the major reform project the proposal entails. This will include a process of consultation with the judiciary and all relevant stakeholders on all matters, including the necessary courts infrastructure and facilities.
“Central to the reforms will be the enactment of the necessary legislative measures to deal with all relevant family law matters including the functions and jurisdiction of the family court,” a spokesperson for the department said.
“It is intended that an outline of the necessary legislation will be published before the end of 2014.”
When asked where these new courts would be located, they said:
The issue of the possible location of the new courts when established has yet to be considered.
Tinsley said that the family courts system was “not fit” to meet the needs or case workload. She said a new structure that centred around the voice of the child needed to be established.
‘A Week in the Family Courts’ series will be running all this week on TheJournal.ie. We will bring you stories and analysis from the Family Courts around the country. Tomorrow we will be look at some of the issues facing children in the care of the State, the common cases that appear before the courts and how the system is working.
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What a devastating disaster. To destroy such an old established business like this. Hope ye can stay going and regroup. Nothing sacred anymore.
Ann
Maybe someone else nearby with a Catering Kitchen could allow her to use their kitchen on a quiet, or a shut shop, day? Esp’ if it has its own “Free Power”/Off-Grid Renewable supply (to keep overheads down – for both parties). A lot of places don’t open on Mondays, Tuesdays, & Wednesdays anymore. If she could still meet even half her clients’ orders that fit with the days she has kitchen access (for retention of freshness), it would give her a fighting chance to keep the business *in business* and ticking over while the Tradies are in the bakery unit restoring and renovating the place…. after the insurance finally inspects & processes whatever payment they intend.
Also – There should not be any water *still* pouring out into her shop unit. Would the Firefighters not have given her a hand there to find the external stopcock and turn off the mains supply to the store entirely.
Unless it’s coming from a loft or rooftop storage tank? But even then, it should quit eventually when it runs out of water . . . .unless, again, the mains outside is not turned off and is still supplying the tank.
We’ll keep the fingers crossed for them anyway.
Best of luck bouncing back
Hope they’ve got adequate insurance that will cover rebuilding and possibly loss of earnings. Even so, next year’s premium might be off the wall. Hate to see a decent family-run business like that destroyed. Not too many left anymore.
Is it possible that the fire could be caused by the ole reliable climate change claim ? Asking for an insurance friend of mine
1862 was a long time ago. Thought it was mostly spuds on the menu then
@The Hard Road: Is that what you thought? Read much?
@Jack Hayes: Comments section is full of w anchors.
@Jack Hayes: I stand corrected. I had thought there were lots of people subsisting on potatoes rather than cream cakes during that period of Irish history. Now I know better
@The Hard Road: Like the man in the orthopaedic shoes.
@The Hard Road: Everything was on the menu then, if you had the wherewithal to pay for it!
@The Hard Road: You are on the right track …-ish. Spuds were never the problem. Wholesale confiscation of all livestock, tillage crops, and grains, by Britain, as “Taxes” surplus to coin taxes and rents, were the problem. All the “tenant” farmer was left with to sustain themselves were usually a few spuds and other scarce bits. Potato crop failed the years of the Famine Genocide, AND Britain still continued to levy and escalate confiscation of all harvests and livestock.
But you would definitely be correct. Very few indigenous Irish would have had the option or opportunity to eat home made cakes, let alone *purchased* bakery goods from the City. Back then, the shop probably predominantly supplied indigenous Protestants who had favourable access to higher salaried professional occupations and lay jobs; and the non-indigenous, like Brits, who held all the Wealth (from Resource stripping).
That is not to say there wouldn’t have been a fair few indigenous Catholics who had reasonably well paid jobs and/or happened to have multiple teenage children capable of and succeeding in getting a lower paid City job who’s wages would then all go into the pot for the mother to run the house (and, buy a rare cake on a rare special occasion).
So it wasn’t wholly impossible for indigenous Irish Catholics to purchase a cake.
It was just far more probable the Protestant Privileged, and the foreign Resource Strippers, were the more common customer (possibly alongside tea shops and other commercial enterprises that didn’t have an in-house baker)
@Pink Freud: comprehensive and factual answer.
@Pink Freud: Sort of what we have now but with multinationals
That picture brought me back .Terrible news and places like this are very few nowadays. Some are intent on destruction and for what purpose? I hope they recover. I have a yearning for a jam doughnut now.
Ireland wants a franchise here. Greggs maybe
@Thesaltyurchin: But do we really, you have clearly have not tasted anything from Greggs.
@Michael Ward: Sarcasm. Apologies, it’s a hard one when read in context. But we do prefer our shop owners to run a Centra, our coffee to be Starbucks. Imagine it’s less work for officials to do, bigger employers, lower wages. If a costa goes bust it probably doesn’t even register a blip on their overall books. Ireland has never liked the SME (imo).
have your say