Dr. Róisín O'Shea:

The members are politicians and know that public pressure brings about change. When it reaches a certain point, it results in motivation. The members here are not mainstream. As Deputy Wallace stated, a great amount of effort could be put in but if the larger parties cannot be convinced to come with one, the work will be much more difficult. What has happened is that the legislation has actually progressed faster than our systems have moved on.

We must commend the extraordinary work done by the former Minister, Alan Shatter. He introduced incredible changes. At the end of May, I will be presenting in Canada on domestic violence in the District Court. When I was there last year, the attendees said they could not believe the legislative changes in Ireland, including same-sex divorce. We have jumped and jumped. Our politicians are actually doing a good job. Does anybody normally say that? It is the truth. A good job is being done here on the family law legislation that is needed. What is happening is that the core systems — those big systems — take time to change.

Let me outline the sea change we have to see. I am not criticising the legal profession because it has a key role but it is a very old institution. The public is very used to the idea of going to legal professionals when they get into trouble. Where did I go first when my marriage ended? To a solicitor. Why? It was because I automatically believed that is where one goes. Why did I stay with the solicitor? It was because I thought I felt protected. Why did I feel protected? I am referring to what brought me here. Let us not point fingers at judges, solicitors or barristers but at ourselves fairly and squarely and to the consequences if we, as a society, do not start having a conversation about what is best for our children and us and where we should go, and if we cannot figure out the approach on early intervention. We and those who also gave testimony should try to set out a very short checklist of what we believe politicians could do right now. I am on the board of the Mediators' Institute of Ireland. I convinced it to put up half the money to co-fund with the Irish Research Council research on child-inclusive mediation. I got both to agree and they came up the money. It will start this week. The researcher is Madeline Tracey from Waterford Institute of Technology. She was a successful candidate. Senator Black asked earlier why we are here. We are here because we are not doing enough research. I support what Dr. Coulter was saying in that we need more data coming out of the courts to inform what we are doing. We need to use those data and also examine what is happening elsewhere. As Dr. Ó hUallacháin said, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. Maybe we need to identify more closely what politicians can do here.