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

The Deputy may be aware that under existing legislation going back to the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act 1989, there is an obligation on the courts to ensure when hearing family cases, for example separation cases or cases in relation to children, that they sit on different days or at different times from other sittings. This has applied from that time to separation cases. Similar provisions were transposed into the Family Law (Divorce) Act 1996 and generally that applies across the board in the context of family law issues and a range of legislation. We are looking at the creation of a unified system of family courts and considering how best to proceed in that context. This gives rise to issues, a possible constitutional change, the need for legislation and the architecture of what those courts would look like. At present there are fragmented jurisdictions where, for example, the Circuit and the District Court can deal with overlapping issues and the Circuit and the High Court can deal with other overlapping issues and some are exclusive to the High Court with the result that across the broad range of family law issues there is a multiplicity of different judges and different courts dealing with similar circumstances in respect of different people. There is also the additional layer of dealing with child care cases.

We are engaged actively in looking at how we proceed down this route. It is likely that I will bring proposals to the Government during the course of this year but I cannot give an exact date yet. There is the structural issue. We clearly do not have unlimited resources to start building a whole range of specialised courts across the country. In other countries, such as certain states in Australia, there are wonderful facilities, such as individualised family courts that do not deal with any other business of any description in the court context. We are looking at how we deal with this in the context of our limited resources and the existing court building structure. The Courts Service has been undertaking work in courts that hear a substantial number of family law cases to provide additional consultation facilities. In some areas where it has done that, the provision is not adequate because the Courts Service is limited in what it can do by the nature of the building. This is an issue in which we are engaged in dialogue. No final conclusions have been reached but I hope that as we go through the year we will be in a position to make decisions and make some important announcements and then progress the legislative agenda with regard to the creation of an integrated unified family court system.