Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their input and the points they made. In respect of appropriate family courts, mediation and contact centres, we have had some very good pilot projects lately relating to contact centres where parents who have separated but who are in dispute about the children can be helped to work through the many issues. This is preferable to these disputes being in court. It is something I would like to develop. The legislation will be useful in terms of determining those very complex issues because Deputy Durkan is right about the role of experts. That is just one input. In the legislation, we have defined the best interests of the child for the first time and provided ten or 11 criteria by which that decision will be made. This will be a very useful framework for the court to consider when making decisions on custody, access and guardianship. It will involve all those involved in ongoing relationships with the child and will examine the capacity of the parents to continue to be involved and a range of issues.

I have already spoken about how domestic violence can be taken into account. It will not just about one person trying to determine the views of the child. It will be about that complex set of criteria being used to determine what should happen to the child. I believe that where there are disputes relating to guardianship, custody and access, much more could be done, as is done in other countries, to make sure families agree these decisions outside the court setting through mediation and contact centres. If it is in court, the development of family courts would be the way to go so that these issues would have the kind of time they deserve and decisions would be taken by people who have a special interest or expertise in the area.

Many of the contributions are about becoming a guardian after one year. The thinking behind this was to show a sustained relationship and a familial relationship in terms of living with the child but it was not considered to be too high a threshold in terms of the amount of time. We are not saying it should it be three, four or five years. We are talking about a period of one year so it is not a very high threshold. I take the point made by some Deputies. Deputy Boyd Barrett quoted a friend. In that situation, clearly the statutory declaration is available immediately to that father. The Deputy also argued that there are exceptional cases. If he was quoting a different type of situation, he might be saying that there are certain factors in this case that I would be concerned about where this might be considered an exceptional case and where there would not be automatic guardianship. I am making the point that there is work to be done on this and that I am committed to linking with the various groups who would make inputs into this. I am very happy to engage in a consultation in the very near future to begin further work on this. I have committed to a two-year review.

In respect of the point made by Deputy Coppinger about a year, it is a very short period because there is work to be done, for example, in terms of developing the regulations that will apply for the registrar in charge of the more readily available statutory declaration. That will take some time. It is a very short period to do the review. I do not think we will have enough information for me to agree to the amendment. I ask the Deputy not to press the amendment but I will commit to carrying out a consultation in the very near future with all of the relevant groups the Deputy referred to. I repeat the commitment I made on Committee Stage that the Department and I will review the operation of the new guardianship provisions within two years of their coming into operation. I also have the pilot project relating to the development of the register of guardianship. We need a pilot project to tease out all the issues around that. I am advised that it is a very substantial piece of work. Given the number of guardianship arrangements in courts and the range we will have under this legislation, I need the pilot projects to see how that might be developed and to scope out the scale of the work that needs to be done.

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