John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 102: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on the issues raised by the Final Report of the Family Law Reporting Service on changes to the in camera rule, published in early November 2007; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9072/08]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The Report of the Family Law Reporting Pilot Project sums up the work of the one-year pilot project, undertaken by Dr Carol Coulter for the Courts Service. This initiative was permitted by a change in the law on the in camera rule in family law. Dr. Carol Coulter was engaged to carry out the reporting of family law on a pilot basis.

The Report comes in two parts. The first part deals with the reporting project itself and makes suggestions, primarily aimed at the Courts Service, for the future direction of the Family Law Reporting Project including that the project should continue. Among the 18 recommendations made in the Report are:

the Courts Service should decide if it is appropriate for it to provide a reporting service on family law, and if so, it should decide what such a service would consist of;

whether the Regulations, naming those entitled to attend family law proceedings, could be amended to allow bona fide members of the press to attend;

if the Courts Service decides to continue the project it should do so for another year — while progressing the digital recording of judgments;

from 2009, or earlier if practicable, the Courts Service should publish judgments, decisions, statistics and some reports or sample cases on the Courts Service website;

the Courts Service should consider nominating a representative to liaise with academic institutions on family law;

the creation of a new Rule of Court to allow judges to give direction in court to those reporting family law proceedings, particularly on how to maintain litigants' anonymity; and

the Central Statistics Office should be asked to extend its examination of statistics in the Courts Service to family law.

I welcome the establishment by the Courts Service of a Special Committee to oversee the Family Law Reporting Project for a further year and to consider the recommendations made in Dr Coulter's report with a view to making proposals for their implementation. I understand that the Committee has commenced its work.