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Our family law courts are not fit for purpose and we owe it to children to address this now

CEO of One Family Karen Kiernan says we desperately need a new modern, fit-for-purpose family law system.

A TRIP TO a family law court is rarely a happy occasion and very few people have a wholly positive experience. Many people’s experience goes something like this:

  • Months waiting for a court date.
  • Hours waiting on a hard bench with those appearing in criminal cases.
  • Worries about whether they would be out in time to collect the children from school.
  • Case adjourned yet again at the end of a long day that only came round every few months.
  • Looking at another month with no maintenance being paid and not enough money to pay the bills/no access arrangement in place.

Needing to attend family law courts in Ireland is no joke. In 2019 25% of all queries to our askonefamily helpline related to family law issues while FLAC is inundated with thousands of calls per year.

In 2018 the District Court saw 12,611 applications for guardianship, custody and access and 8,935 application for maintenance, including applications to vary maintenance and seek arrears. 

It is a massively under-resourced system attempting to put a semblance of order on the chaos of family breakdown, conflicts and violence.

Circuit Courts have a slightly more rarefied air dealing with divorces and separations; however, there are constant complaints about the lack of space, privacy and the expensive days sitting around waiting to get into court.

A broken system

Only Dublin has specialist family law court buildings and courtrooms, and these are in desperate need of an upgrade. But the condition of the buildings and under-resourcing is only part of the story. Many families should not end up in court at all but there is a pitiful amount of ‘alternative dispute resolution’ such as mediation available.

There is practically no statutory provision of what is known as ‘ancillary court services’ such as parenting programmes, counselling for parents or children, child contact centres and the like. These services are widely available in other countries, so why not here?

There are constant reports from parents and legal practitioners about the increasing use of specialist reports being ordered by courts to assess parenting capacity, the wishes of the children, and what is in the best interests of children by a dwindling number of assessors.

These assessors may be extremely expert but are not regulated, must be paid privately by parents and their reports are owned by the court.

Frankly, there are so many problems it is hard to imagine how things can improve and many of us try to put small patches on a very broken system but do we need to just start again?

Presumably, the purpose of family law should be primarily to keep children safe; to ensure their best interest is maintained. It should hear their voice as well as those of their parents and assist individual families to reach their own solutions to conflict that they can be motivated to implement and to keep accountability in terms of parents’ responsibilities to their children.

The new programme for government has pledged to:

  • Enact a Family Court Bill to create a new dedicated Family Court within the existing court structure and provide for court procedures that support a less-adversarial resolution of disputes.
  • Build a new Family Law Court building in Dublin and ensure that court facilities across the country are suitable for family law hearings so that these hearings can be held separately from other cases.

This draft Family Law Court Bill has been in play for several years and will provide for specialist family law court times, sittings and buildings across the country which can provide regionally-based specialist Family Law Centres.

This new structure is needed to build other reforms and so will be critical to get passed and funded. However, we need to think bigger and more strategically about how to keep children safe in a modern fit-for-purpose family law system.

Whilst we desperately need this new legislation we actually need to think beyond that, to rise above ‘the way it has always been done’ and any vested interests to develop a Family Law Court system that is wrapped around the needs of children and their families.

We need a Court Welfare Service to provide family supports such as parenting and therapeutic supports, assessments wherever needed for court, child contact centres and mediation.

If we don’t start dreaming big, seeing past the problems and creating this shared vision for the future we can’t get there and how many children will have been left behind as a result?

We can’t afford to wait, children can’t afford for us to wait; we need to start working towards change now. This will require leadership, funding and a clear focus on the outcome – safety for children in all circumstances and in all families.

Karen Kiernan is CEO of the One Family charity.

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    Mute John Flanagan
    Favourite John Flanagan
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:28 PM

    Will Ms McAleer get a letter from the Revenue as it looks like she’s been earning €20k from her undeclared work for eight months while getting her benefits from the Social?

    145
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    Mute John B
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:56 PM

    John I’m sorry to disappoint you but either way you and I and the rest of the tax payers are paying her legal costs, court time, and her continued free ride courtesy of the state.

    91
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    Mute The End Is High
    Favourite The End Is High
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    Jan 30th 2017, 5:56 PM

    If only she had beaten someone to death in the street. Maybe then she would be in jail. It would only be 1 year max, but still better than nothing in this corrupt country

    75
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    Mute P1
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:27 PM

    What’s the point of obeying the law in this country when all you get when you’re caught and brought to court is a fine and/or a suspended sentence…might as well go big if you’re going do it at all as you won’t serve time anyway….

    36
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    Mute Rodger 5
    Favourite Rodger 5
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:08 PM

    “not for human consumption” & avoids porridge, maybe she should be head chef in Leinster House that would encourage law enforcement pronto.

    55
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    Mute Paul
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:17 PM

    If only dome of that 20,000 was spent on protection, 6 kids wonder did she decided on the sixth to get the judge to go easy!

    54
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    Mute Paul
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:18 PM

    Rodger

    Not meant as a response to u!

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    Mute Rodger 5
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:21 PM

    @Paul: phew

    10
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    Mute Deborah Behan
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:28 PM

    @Paul that’s what the woman convicted in Dales case did as well! Disgraceful.

    15
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    Mute Suzie Sunshine
    Favourite Suzie Sunshine
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:37 PM

    Of course she did .. sure why else would she get pregnant knowing she could be getting a sentence ..

    26
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    Mute the truth
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    Jan 30th 2017, 9:36 PM

    some silly bitch payed her for these injections dopey dopey women

    16
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    Mute Aislinné Freeman
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    Jan 30th 2017, 11:38 PM

    @the truth I know more men that use tanning aids than I do women

    13
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    Mute the truth
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    Jan 30th 2017, 11:50 PM

    @aislinne yes indeed there are male idiots who do it but it’s mostly stupid females.

    4
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    Mute Jeffrey McMahon
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:45 PM

    Should have been a €4000 fine on top of the full €20000 she earned. Whatever way you look at it she profited from her criminal activity.

    51
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    Mute Watchful Axe
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:23 PM

    She could be in trouble with Revenue for not submitting tax returns as well as a claw back of historic welfare payments, could be deemed to be fraudulent collection as she was earning. Very silly.

    32
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    Mute Louis OConnell
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:42 PM

    She must be browned off with that sentence

    29
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    Mute Mahmoud O'Connell
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:20 PM

    In the UK, this clown would have been given 3 years, at least. And put in a prison where the inmates don’t like people taking advantage of the vulnerable/young…often their own.

    26
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    Mute Patrick Brompton
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:16 PM

    ‘The Court was told that only doctors or dentists can give medicine by injection’. Really? What about nurses? What about Type 1 diabetics who can inject themselves (or, if children, be injected by their parents) with insulin 5 or more times a day?

    26
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    Mute Stephen murphy
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:24 PM

    @Patrick Brompton: That’s prescribed medicine, under the direction of a medical doctor and not under the counter banned substance she was selling.

    32
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    Mute Terry McClatchey
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:24 PM

    “Administer” was the wrong word. Prescribe would have been more correct. This person should have been doing neither.

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    Mute Mahmoud O'Connell
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:26 PM

    Pat – supervision/authority was obviously omitted, as most would have inferred it.

    7
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    Mute Tweed Cap
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:31 PM

    In fairness anyone who pays to have a tan injected into their belly by some random bird in a gaff should also be fined for stupidity.

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    Mute Theunpopularpopulist
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    Jan 30th 2017, 9:47 PM

    This type of thing is happening all over the country with very little enforcement.

    Beauticians offering Botox and teeth whitening, neither of which can be done without either a medical or dental degree – yet people are either looking for something cheap or they don’t care.

    15
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    Mute Steven Hillert
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    Jan 30th 2017, 11:11 PM

    It’s funny to see all the keyboard gangsters on the journal. You come here to tell the world how you feel about the wrong decisions being made on different issues. But nobody cares what you have to say. Actually that’s a lie sorry there is people that love you to be here letting all your anger out on the keyboard. The judges the politicians the law makers basically anyone in power. They know they can get away with what they want and the Irish people will take to there keyboards and nothing else. So people if your really upset about the way this country is being run into the ground then it’s time you do more. Anything is better than being keyboard politics. The time has come for direct action before it’s too late.

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    Mute Andreas Blignaut
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    Jan 31st 2017, 1:58 AM

    Apart from the poor grammar, what is your point?

    5
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    Mute Andreas Blignaut
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    Jan 31st 2017, 1:55 AM

    With 5 kids at her young age she must be busy, and I don’t mean selling illegal tans. A bit of jail time could have spared social welfare another few mouths to feed.

    6
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    Mute Daniel O'Connor
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    Jan 30th 2017, 9:22 PM

    It’s banned in most European countries, so it must be good

    6
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    Mute Danny G
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    Jan 30th 2017, 6:23 PM

    In America, she would have gotten “the lethal injection”!!

    5
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    Mute Gerry Fallon
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    Jan 30th 2017, 8:42 PM

    I’m browned off over this story.

    4
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    Mute Kal Ipers
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    Jan 30th 2017, 7:27 PM

    People were going on about overpayments by DSP, here is an example of what gets classed as an overpayment.
    Anybody who takes such tanning supplements should also know it looks ridiculous. The colouring is even all over so looks really odd when your eye lids and ears are the same colour as your hands.

    3
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    Mute Suzie Sunshine
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    Jan 30th 2017, 7:34 PM

    I don’t think it looks odd when you have an all over even tan.. it looks odd when you have white bits everywhere. ..

    8
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    Mute Drew TheChinaman :)
    Favourite Drew TheChinaman :)
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    Jan 31st 2017, 4:39 AM

    Is there any evidence this product is equal or more dangerous than using a tanning bed?

    If not you would think the same arguments as e-cigarettes would apply.

    2
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