Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy may be measuring that against last year's expenditure. The Estimates are actually down for this year - there is not an increase. There may be some confusion about the figures. I will give the Deputy an opportunity to check that and I will be happy to clarify it further but I believe that is where the confusion lies.

On the family law issue, it is of huge importance that people who have family problems can feel their problems can be resolved where they require court hearings with reasonable speed. It remains the position that all our courts are not ideal for dealing with family law. They do not all have the necessary consultation facilities. We still only have mediation facilities within the court structures in a very small number of courts. Essentially, the main pilot mediation process - it was called a pilot process but we have continued it - was in Dolphin House in Dublin. The ideal would be that we would have a mediation structure, for example, within each of the Circuit Court areas, but we do not have that. We have the mediation service, which is available and operates under the aegis of the Legal Aid Board.

One of the issues with family law is that far too many family difficulties are still dealt with through court hearings. It was my experience during my years as a family law solicitor that when one is dealing with disputes between parents over the parenting of children - where one parent, to use the technical phrase, has custody and the other has access - all sorts of difficulties and issues can arise which can be better resolved through mediation, if both parents would be reasonable with each other, even when there is a dispute as to who should be the primary caring parent. There are many court orders where both parents are effectively given joint custody but there is always a parent with whom a child or children primarily reside. Unfortunately and tragically, all too frequently, the dispute between estranged parents or estranged spouses turns into a war over children and children are used as the weapons in the war without one or both parents - frequently it is only one parent - understanding the damage they are doing to their children, both in the short- and in the long-term, by the manner in which they deal with these issues. It is of huge importance that spouses estranged from each other - former partners living with each other outside marriage who have children - realise that no matter what the enmity is between them that they should do everything possible to protect their children from it and to encourage their children to maintain good relationships with both of them. Mediation can play a very substantial role in that. Many judges in our courts, from the District Court up to the High Court, who when confronted with disputes between parents in this area encourage them to co-operate with each other and to resolve their disputes by agreement rather than by court order. However, unfortunately, there is a group of individuals whose relationships break up who see their children as a means of taking revenge on their partner and they do terrible damage. They create difficulties for the children in coming to terms not merely with the break up but in their later lives in forming relationships. I have seen that in my 30 years as a family lawyer. Having represented an estranged spouse in my younger days, I have ended up representing one of their adult children who has had all sorts of difficulties which I could trace back to the war that took place between the parents at an early stage in that person's life.

There is a good deal in this area that could be dealt with differently but a portion of it is dependent on individuals whose marriages break down realising that, regardless of the stress of the breakdown or who they regard as responsible for it, their children should not become the casualties and that they have a responsibility to behave well as parents with regard to their children and maintain relationships. Of course there are exceptions to that. There are parents who are violent towards their children and parents who abuse their children. Obviously children must be protected from that but also, all too frequently, those allegations are untruthfully made as a weapon in the marital breakdown war and that is a matter of difficulty. I would like to see a situation develop in cases of disputes between parents over children that it was automatically understood that the dispute would be resolved through mediation and that only in exceptional cases should the courts have to be engaged.

What does not work is making people compulsorily attend mediation. People must understand its benefits and volunteer to engage. Compulsory attendance would result in engagement by individuals who have no intention of resolving matters and seeking to delay others genuine in their approach. That is a particular issue.

In the context of the Legal Aid Board, strong emphasis has been placed on reducing the family mediation service waiting lists nationally to ensure that the service complements the board's law centre. It is important people wishing to resolve matters through mediation do not have to wait longer than two to three months for an appointment at mediation. The objective was generally maintained in 2012. Where necessary a panel of private mediators has been used to supplement the work of the mediation service, the objective being to reduce the numbers going through the courts system unnecessarily. This is, of course, only in the context of those who require legal aid as they are unable to afford lawyers in private practice. Our legislation provides that lawyers must always advise people of mediation as an alternative to litigation. Unfortunately, not everybody listens to the advice of their lawyers.