Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome what the Minister says but I think that we need to do something with Hammond Lane. Ms Angela Denning, who is the Accounting Officer for the Courts Service, was before the Committee of Public Accounts last week. From what she said, we understand that Hammond Lane is being used as a site depot for other builders who are doing work in the vicinity of Smithfield. We need Government commitment to develop this site so that we can have full, proper family law courts there. We need to look at judges. We need greater training for judges who are dealing with family law cases. More importantly, we need more judges to deal with these issues. Most of these cases are before the District Court and Circuit Court. When one sees citizens in Phoenix House, one can see that the facilities there at present are completely unacceptable. We need to modernise our family law courts. As we mentioned in our report, ultimately, a court-imposed solution on a family is no substitute for an agreed, mediated settlement between the family. We should be trying to ensure that they stay away from adversarial processes and that we can have a mediated settlement to resolve disputes.

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