Dr. Keith Walsh:

We have flagged anecdotally that there is a problem with fathers because of the change in society. I have been doing this work for about 20 years and there is a much greater involvement from fathers now than at the start of that period and there is also a great change in the role of both parents in terms of how involved they are with their children. One of the real difficulties for fathers in Dublin, where I practise, is accommodation. The result of a judicial separation or the end of a relationship is that one of the two people is not living with the other one and it is usually the father who is living in different accommodation. The challenge is to get accommodation that is child friendly or even capable of having an overnight with the child. At the minute in Dublin, unless one is on a significant salary, that challenge is huge. If one is not living near one's children, the reality is that one does not see them as much and does not have as much contact with them.

The judges are trying to work with that and to some degree, our system of justice is an adversarial one. It is up to the lawyers to put it up to the judges as well. It is not inquisitorial justice where the judge intervenes. An awful lot of family law cases are resolved by settlement, particularly judicial separation and divorce, which is where marital couples deal with custody and access issues. Non-marital couples deal with it in the District Court, which is a lot more summary justice. There is an unfair distinction between marital cases and non-marital cases because of the venue for the proceedings, how they are dealt with and the amount of time given to them. Cases in the High Court will get the most time, the Circuit Court would get a bit less time and cases in the District Court get an awful lot less time. That is reflected in the costs of the cases as well.

The in camerarule is unhelpful as well. The difficulty is that there is a perception that fathers should perhaps be happy with every second weekend and one overnight during the week and some fathers will be happy with that but for fathers who are not happy with that kind of traditional model of access, it means that they probably have to go and get an expert report which will support their contention that they should have more access. They can do that and they can dig their heels in but they have to dig their heels in a bit and it is not automatic. One gets the report and one advocates for access but it can be done. Most solicitors would push that for their clients but it does require a push and if one is fighting on a number of fronts in a case to do with finances, maintenance, a house and negotiating a mortgage, the children, who may be the most important part of it, sometimes get a bit lost in the mix. The father is trying to juggle a full-time job, deal with his life, deal with access and deal with the breakdown of a relationship so it is understandable why people might not push it. Ms Coughlan mentioned that we require some fairly serious quantitative research on the type of access orders that are being made and to lift the in camerarule and allow people who have been through the process to speak to someone such as Dr. Carol Coulter or other independent academics about their experience. The family law courts need to reflect this and there is probably a need for training in this area as well to move it on. As practitioners, without any objective evidence, based on our own cases and meetings, we believe that there are problems for fathers and that it is harder for fathers to get the access they want than it should be. If it was a fair system that it the way it would work.