Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will say, very carefully, that I understand this pressure and the issue well as a consequence of my work as a Deputy, but also due to some background work I have done. I would be very careful to describe it in terms of gender or a particular experience, so I will remove myself from that conversation and simply speak to the process.

It is intolerable that voice of children is not accurately heard in any court process, when they have the constitutional right, which this House supported, to have their voice heard. In any family breakdown situation of any kind the most important thing is protecting the children and their well-being. The concept of the State's courts processes being used by any party in a family law dispute, whether between men and women, men and men, or women or women, against a partner to achieve his or her own personal objectives is wrong. The State has to guard and protect against that and the courts processes have to be particularly careful to guard against it. That is why it is so important to really understand section 47 and section 32 reports. If the courts are going to place weight on them, and it has been obvious in cases that they have done so, then it is important that those reports are created in a way that the courts would be happy to stand over and that we, as legislators, would be happy to stand over. For that reason, it is important that the working group established by the Department of Justice has looked at this and other issues.

I recall the former Deputy, Alan Shatter, when he was Minister for Justice and Equality, had similar concerns regarding the conduct of custody and access cases and the need to make sure that children were always prioritised at the centre of family law cases. Later this year a working group will be established to review the effectiveness of the current arrangements for hearing the voice of the child in private family law cases and we will hear a great deal more about it there.

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