Pauline Tully (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and will support it. I particularly welcome the fact that there are 24 new judges coming in a few weeks and a further 20 to follow. I particularly welcome that they are for both the lower courts, the District Court and the Circuit Court. There has been an increase in the number of judges in the past decade but this has been more for the higher courts. The reason I welcome this for the lower courts is that most of the cases brought to my attention relate to family law and domestic abuse. The delays in the courts in dealing with these is having a terrible effect on families. Where a family breakdown occurs and where they are waiting for judicial separation or a divorce, the longer it takes and the more adjournments that take place, the harder it is on the two people, and indeed the children, if there are any.

On domestic violence cases, people are seeking interim barring orders and they get these for a period of eight days, I believe. It was normal practice then to go back to court to seek the final order. It is taking up to four months in some areas and I know that in my area of Cavan, someone has to wait 12 weeks before getting the safety or barring order. This results in trauma being compounded on mostly women and children, and some are being forced to go back to an unsafe situation because they have nowhere else to go, or they are putting a great deal of pressure on refuge spaces and taking them up for longer than they should need to. I welcome the fact that with more judges, this issue will be addressed.

Other issues in the family law area need to be reviewed. I understand that they are not dealt with under this Bill but the in camerarule, for example, allows perpetrators of domestic violence to hide their identity, even where in some cases the victim or survivor is quite happy to go public. This has been described by some domestic violence support groups as a paradise for abusers. I understand the need for the in camerarule but I believe it is benefiting abusers who in many cases are often projected as pillars of society and do not want to be seen in their true form.

Judges and court staff need training in the area of domestic violence. I have a number of examples, one of which recently is where a young woman who was hospitalised as a result of a serious assault by her partner for the second time. There had been other incidents of abuse as well as that but she finally felt strong and brave enough to seek a barring order. When she went to the judge, he said that he would give her a protection order and if her partner then breached the protection order, she could then ring An Garda, have him arrested and removed from the property. She could not return to that home because she was afraid that she would not be allowed to make that phone call if she went back. There was evidence there that he had seriously assaulted her on a number of occasions and she should have been able to get a barring order.

Another older woman who had put up with years of abuse and control finally, again, felt strong enough to go to a judge and seek a barring order. The judge said to her that it was hardly that serious if it took her that long to actually report it. That is a disgraceful attitude and needs to be addressed.

The issues of maintenance need to be taken out of the courts system altogether. It is mostly women and children who go to the courts and are forced to go back. It is time-consuming, expensive and is being used by abusers as a way of continuing to exert control over their former partner. We need to look at another mechanism outside of the court system to deal with the non-payment of maintenance and not to force people back in to the court, with the retraumatisation of facing a former partner over the non-payment of maintenance.

The other proposals within the Bill such as judicial resources, planning models and more flexible working arrangements are positive. Judges need to have a clear career path and the right specialisation, especially in areas such as commercial law, family law and domestic abuse.

While I believe the Bill could have gone further, it does broadly take into consideration the recommendations of the OECD and the judicial planning working group and I, therefore, will support it.

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