Dr. Róisín O'Shea:

I do not see sanctions in the District Court in private family law cases but under the 2015 Act we have sanctions that a judge can use. I was asking why these sanctions are not popping in the court. Dolphin House has 95% self representation so the staff in Dolphin House help litigants fill out the paperwork, which is a brilliant innovation. This is really good but they are dancing a fine line of not giving legal advice while helping them fill out the paperwork. People filling out the paperwork do not realise they should have filled out another form to state they wanted to come to court not only to deal with a breach of access but also to have a sanction imposed. The sanction that exists under section 18A is compensatory time. The judge may give parent who had been refused access longer periods of time to offset the adverse effects of the break in contact. This is a sanction but it is a good sanction because it gives parenting time to the parent who lost out and extra time on top of it.

Fathers or mothers who must come to court to enforce their rights may be reimbursed for expenses incurred in trying to enforce their rights. I have not seen that come up. The judges tell me they are not sure how they might do that if it came in front of them. In other words, are they reimbursing for the lost day of pay because of having to step away from the job for the day or are they paying for the bus, taxi or Luas fare to get to court? The judge can also ask one or both parents to engage in family counselling, individual counselling, mediation or a parenting programme. All these sanctions are for where one parent was unreasonably denied access based on existing court orders. It is there.

In 2017, I went to the District Court because I thought I would start to see this. This is what I was looking for. However, we are now in 2019 and I have not seen it once. We have had only 400 cases but in 400 cases I have not seen one application. To put it in layman's language, it is like getting the ticket out of the machine when getting a tax disc but nobody is pulling the ticket. A judge operates to the ticket that comes in. People fill out a form that goes before the judge but the judge can deal only with the ticket in front of him or her. If the person has not filled in a form to state he or she wants the judge to look at the sanctions, the judge cannot do it.