Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There is a large bunch of amendments in the grouping so I will seek to micromanage them, but they all deal with the mediators' code of practice.

As Deputy O'Callaghan said, my amendment No. 14 is a slightly different version of Deputy Wallace's amendment No. 12. At present, section 8 holds that "the mediator shall, prior to the commencement of the mediation ... furnish to the parties a copy of any code of practice to which he or she subscribes". Therefore, it is proposed that mediators be able basically to write something on the back of a napkin as long as they say it is their code of practice. My first amendment seeks to place an obligation on the mediators to subscribe to a single code of practice, changing "any" to "the".

My second amendment is linked with this in that it provides that all mediators' codes of practice "shall incorporate in full ... the code of practice prepared and published [by the Minister] under section 9". During Second Stage debate on the Bill, even Government backbenchers made the point that there is no point in the Minister publishing a code of practice for the conduct of mediators only for mediators not to be obliged to follow it. It does not make any sense. In this sense, section 9 is undermined by section 8 in that mediators do not have to sign up to the code of practice and, therefore, all of the good aspirations in section 9(2) about ethical standards being observed and continuing professional development can basically be junked by a mediator who is empowered to design his or her own code if he or she so wishes. Given that we were discussing in the House last week the regulation of other professional bodies, we need regulation here, and the mediators themselves want it.

I note that the Law Society said it was very disappointed that proportionate and appropriate regulation of mediators has not been given a statutory basis in this Bill. Any amendments to do so would probably be outside the scope of the Bill at this stage. It is particularly against this backdrop that I urge the Minister to accepts these amendments. My amendment No. 23 is an effort to plug the gap in this regard pending full statutory regulation. These amendments, if accepted, would at least require mediators to sign up to a code of practice with certain crucial provisions set by the Minister and would require that the code of practice also incorporate training requirements for mediators, a provision that is absent from the Bill at present. Without this, I believe we are heading into very dangerous territory. It leaves people seriously exposed to ending up potentially in the hands of rogue operators to be exploited, which we absolutely do not want. This is important and, as I said, even Government backbenchers made this point during the Second Stage debate. Amendment No. 15 is linked into this in that it places an obligation on the Minister to prepare and publish or cause to be prepared or published a code of practice for mediators. At present, it is only an option for the Minister, which is not good enough. It should be a requirement.

Amendments Nos. 20, 22, 23 and 25 are another little grouping within this grouping and, again, they seek to tighten things up regarding the code of practice. At present, the code of practice the Minister may draw up may include provisions concerning continuing professional development, ethical standards to be observed, the determination of costs and fees and so on. What we seek to do with this amendment is to place an obligation on the Minister to include all of these provisions, but not just these provisions. It can go broader than them. The amendment does not limit the Minister to these provisions but it does oblige him to deal with them.

Amendment No. 23 obliges the Minister to include education and training requirements for mediators in this regard as well. This grouping, obliging the Minister to put certain things into the code of practice, is very reasonable and I believe it is supported by the profession itself. Against the backdrop of our trying to professionalise many of these standards, the grouping is more than welcome. In deference to amendment No. 23, my amendment No. 25 then seeks to remove the item in the list of things to be included in the code of practice regarding procedures to be followed by mediators in the conduct of mediation. I am seeking to remove this on the assumption that amendment No. 23 will be accepted. We would be tying the hands of mediators too much if we were to keep that line in the context of the other provisions I mentioned. We do not want to micromanage what mediators do in primary legislation, and that is not the intention of these amendments, but the option is always there for the Minister to include recommended procedures to be followed. However, requiring mediators to sign up to procedures that must be followed in primary legislation is too much. That can be dealt with by statutory regulation. The aim is to try to overcome some of the shortcomings in the mediators' code of practice.