Mr. Frank McGlynn:

We appreciate the invitation to Men's Voices Ireland and the Nemo Forum to address the committee on family law. The family law system has evolved over the past 40 years with very little regard for the rights, needs, interests or experiences of men. We find that the family courts are adversarial, exacerbate hostility, create ill will, and are bad for parents and children. The system is overloaded, delays are frequent and we understand that judges dislike family law cases. Instead of addressing the social issues, family law has evolved into a high-growth civil law industry that thrives on exploiting conflict. It benefits only lawyers, solicitors and other professionals. It plunders scarce family resources that are even more stretched following a separation. The system takes far too long to reach a settlement. Legal fees are very expensive and place lay litigants at a disadvantage. Men are less likely to qualify for legal aid and very many are unable to afford legal representation. A point made repeatedly at the hearing in this committee on 6 March was that the threshold for legal aid was too low and disadvantages men.

Children suffer from costly and long drawn out conflicts. They may also be used as pawns in custody battles. Joint custody in a real 50-50 sense occurs in only about 1% of cases. We believe that breaches of access orders should be dealt with firmly with sanctions imposed. This does not happen at present.

Outcomes in the family courts are bad for men and this is well attested. Too often it is a winner-takes-all situation in which the man is removed from the home. He may still have to pay maintenance and a mortgage as well as provide for himself. Furthermore, he will often discover that access to his children is gravely diminished, in many cases because he can no longer provide suitable accommodation for himself and his children due to his removal from the family home under section 10 of the Family Law Act 1995. There is a need to reform the law and remove that section in order to prevent these disastrous outcomes. This is also essential to ensure that mediation is entered into meaningfully by both parties.

Alternative dispute resolution, ADR, produces far better and more conciliatory results in a shorter period and at a lower cost. There is evidence for this from Irish mediation services, as well as from Finland, New Zealand and elsewhere. It has much better outcomes for children and should, therefore, be regarded as the normal procedure. Application to the courts should only be made in the event of failure of mediation and should be regarded as the exception, not the rule.

Members will see from the supporting documentation supplied to the committee many of our proposals such as the introduction of families in transition programmes, the replacement of the family law civil Bill with proposals for the reorganisation of the family unit, and mandatory mediation are designed to reduce the hostility and expectations of victory that are inherent features of the current family law system.

We hope these proposals will be of interest to and given due consideration by the committee.