Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have already registered my opposition to this. What section 76 proposes to do is to amend section 10 of the Family Home Protection Act 1976 and therefore to confer on the District Court a jurisdiction it does not have at present. The Family Home Protection Act is massively important legislation that transformed the status of women in relation to family law proceedings because before that, there was an extent to which the family home could be sold out from under them. While I am not saying that there is any move here not to, it is very important that we safeguard the provisions in that Act.

As I stated, the section gives a new jurisdiction to the District Court to deal with issues pertaining to the interests and rights of non-owning spouses in land. Of course, land does not just include the place where they are living. The rational for the expansion of this jurisdiction is a little unclear. The types of case that involve the Family Home Protection Act can be very complex in nature. For that reason, I would suggest that some of them would not be suitable for the District Court, both in terms of the length of time they would take and the fact that the issues involved that would not traditionally come before the District Court. They could include third parties such as financial institutions that might have a mortgage or some other kind of lien on a property which is a family home. Therefore, I wonder about the current allocation of jurisdiction and whether it is appropriate to overturn that if these matters are of such weighty consequence that they are going to take a large amount of time and involve a lot of complexity and whether it is appropriate to extend the jurisdiction of the District Court to include section 10 of the 1976 Act.