Ms Helen Coughlan:

I will deal with the practical implications of the current delays in the system. I work as a family law solicitor in Kildare. If somebody comes to see me today seeking maintenance or access, I will submit an application to the court. It will be four months before that application will first come before the court. It goes before the court for mention only so unless it has been resolved it will then be put into a further list a further four months down the road. For the person who comes to see me today, it could conceivably be October before that matter is adjudicated in court. That is the situation in Kildare. There are similar delays elsewhere. According to the Courts Service, in Letterkenny one would be waiting 13 weeks, in Carlow it would be 12 weeks, six to eight weeks in Wexford and four weeks in Dundalk. Those figures are from 2017 and I have not seen more up-to-date figures.

That is the case if one has the resources to go to a private practitioner. If one is going to the Legal Aid Board, before one can get one's application off the ground one will face delays in even seeing a solicitor for the first consultation. For example, in Blanchardstown there is currently a 44-week delay before one will see a solicitor. If one is in Ennis, the delay is 21 weeks, it is eight weeks in Wexford and 17 weeks in Wicklow. That is before one even gets one's application into court. It is to see a solicitor initially to get advice.

There is a very serious issue in terms of access to justice. In practical terms those delays mean that parents may not be seeing their children and they might not be getting suitable financial resources for their children. Mr. Walsh mentioned childcare and the facilities in Chancery Street. Childcare cases are heard in Chancery Street at present. This was the old Bridewell. Hearings where the most vulnerable people are before the court, where their children will be taken into care by the State, are downstairs in what is equivalent to what the dungeons were. That is where the family law childcare cases are heard at present. We are not serving the most vulnerable in society with the facilities we have.