Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

The resources that were made available last December to the Legal Aid Board and the Family Mediation Service will take them to the end of this year. The question of what funding will be made available next year has to be considered by the Government in the context of the ongoing expenditure review but the changes we propose will ensure a more efficient use of resources. Important synergies will be achieved by making available to the Family Mediation Service premises in certain parts of the country which are already occupied by law centres. At present the operation of the service is somewhat constrained. I do not know and cannot tell the House what financial envelope of funds may be made available to me for both services. I regard both as very important and we dealt recently on Question Time with the Legal Aid Board. The difficulty this year is that based on last year's Estimates, the board is underfunded and because of the recession and so many families being in straitened financial circumstances, there has been a substantial increase in the numbers seeking assistance through centres.

I hope that in the context of resources, greater connectivity between the Legal Aid Board and the mediation service will result in many more estranged couples or parents using the service, especially dealing initially with custody and access disputes, many of which could be readily resolved in mediation but unnecessarily end up with hearings in the District Court. That may produce a resource saving as it may be the case that moneys otherwise spent on legal resources would not be required for particular individuals, freeing up the service for others for whom mediation is not a practical possibility.

I hope that we will see, under the encouragement of the Legal Aid Board and the service administered under it, far more people using the mediation service. Connectivity is important. The Dolphin House pilot scheme is very important, and one of the successes in mediation in other jurisdictions has been when mediation services have been established in the same building as court structures. On occasions individuals will, without lawyer advice, issue summons on custody or access issues and not go to mediation. When there is a mediation service in the building and where court clerks indicate the availability of such a service, a significant number of people may first try to use that type of service. That has been the experience elsewhere.

I see the areas of expansion and greater utilisation of mediation coming from a linking of this service with the administrative structures of the Legal Aid Board. It could consider some form of internal protocol to encourage the use of mediation. There would also be a linkage between the board, the mediation service and the Courts Service. I hope we will have funding in future for the extension of the pilot scheme currently operating in Dolphin House to other courts where a substantial number of family cases are dealt with each year.

See this speech in context