Mr. Keith Walsh:

Yes, there is free mediation in the family mediation service. A pilot project for mediators, which has been running in Dolphin House in Dublin for a couple of years, deals with some of the cases and is successful. The mediators are on the premises of Dolphin House and it seems to have worked. A similar project has been rolled out in Ennis, County Clare. Mediation and alternative dispute resolution are the kinds of features that everyone would like to have available in courthouses. The solicitors who work in the Legal Aid Board are utterly overworked due to the volume of cases and there is a constant pressure on them to service people. Perhaps outsourcing services or providing more resources would help but the waiting lists are unacceptably long.