Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are quite a number of other points that I could make about these amendments. A key point is that it is not a voluntary process if a person has been the victim of domestic violence, because often emotional blackmail is involved or the former relationship has left one of the parties feeling inadequate or unequal to the dominant person.

The Minister mentioned a remedy through the criminal courts. We have seen over the years that the number of case of domestic violence which end up in court is minuscule in comparison to what should be dealt with there. Recent court judgments would not encourage many of those victims to go down that route.

I refer to the Women's Aid document. It refers to another report from one family who quoted another woman concerning how vulnerable she felt in the sessions themselves by virtue of the fact that the mediator was male.

It is not always the case that a voluntary scenario means that someone can opt in or opt out. The potential for emotional blackmail exists, especially when children are involved and where the dominant person is alleged to have been involved in domestic violence, even in the absence of proceedings. I take the Minister's point that if proceedings have been initiated then the matter is excluded anyway, but in the vast majority of cases of domestic violence proceedings are never initiated or are never brought forward beyond the initial allegation. That is sad, and is a slight on our system as a whole. Why can we not provide proper protections which would encourage those who are victims to take those cases? In the interim, this is an additional protection that should be considered for this legislation.

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