Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The overall increase from 98,000 to 294,000 was to support the huge amount of work it already does. There are 30 full-time law centres, part-time centres, four specialist legal offices and 20 family mediation centres. Of the law centres, eight of these with a family mediation offices are collocated. It is not just the online services but a huge amount is happening in-person on the ground. The Deputy referenced family law and about 30% of the calls related to same. To break it down further, of that 30% some 44% related to divorce, a number that has unfortunately increased in the previous year. Some 29% of the calls were concerning custody, access and guardianship, which again represents a rise of almost 18%. Some 17% of the calls related to maintenance, which is a rise of just under 10%. Finally, 12% of the calls were domestic violence queries so this is connected with the work we are doing in the development of the family law court, the family hubs and the family justice oversight group, acknowledging that this is an area we need to specialise more in. We need to create specialised judges and have separate channels for families to go to in the courts. We have such a significant increase in cases presenting before the courts so we must ensure we can respond to them as well as continuing to provide support for FLAC, which provides that initial support for many families.

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