Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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31. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality what action her Department is taking to improve access to alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, such as mediation and arbitration, as a means of resolving legal disputes outside of the courts system; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8272/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The formation of a Mediation Council of Ireland is a component of the Mediation Act 2017 and the overall development of mediation throughout Ireland. The Council will play an important role in promoting public awareness of mediation, maintaining and developing mediation standards – including continuous professional development – and establishing a national register of mediators.

My Department is currently working with the mediation sector to support their work on its establishment. To that end, a plenary meeting with all mediation sector representatives has been scheduled for today, Thursday 22 February, and senior officials from my Department will be in attendance.

The Deputy will also be aware that I published the Family Justice Strategy in November 2022. The Strategy sets out the vision for a coordinated, consistent and user-focused family justice system, which helps children and families obtain earlier, appropriate resolutions in a simpler, fairer, and more effective way. It aims to achieve this through the implementation of over 50 actions across nine goals.

Goal 4 of the Strategy aims to promote more co-operative, less adversarial ways for individuals, children and families to try to resolve disputes. This goal contains a number of actions relating to the role of mediation in family justice.

The Courts Service has, as part of its family justice work, provided information on the potential use of mediation in family law on its new Family Law Information Hub. It also signposts mediation on guardianship, custody, access and maintenance court forms.

In addition, under this Goal the Legal Aid Board has provided training to its staff and those of the Courts Service to inform members of the public on mediation and the services available. It has also commenced a private panel of family mediators to supplement the work of the Family Mediation Service.

In 2022, the Legal Aid Board introduced an Advanced Family Mediation Trainee Programme to train mediators to work in the family mediation area and to meet the current eligibility criteria to apply for a position as a family mediator in the Legal Aid Board. Entry to the training was via a recruitment competition, which was advertised nationwide. Nine trainees completed this programme in 2023.

Part of the Family Justice Strategy and a key element of the programme of family justice reforms, is the establishment of a family court as divisions within the existing court structures. This is set out in the Family Courts Bill 2022. The Bill completed Second Stage in the Seanad in 2023.

The Bill provides a set of guiding principles aimed at ensuring that the family court system and family law proceedings will operate in an efficient and user-friendly manner. Key among the guiding principles is encouraging and facilitating, as far as possible, the resolution of issues in dispute by means of alternative resolution methods, such as mediation.

The courts, legal practitioners and parties to family law proceedings will be required to have regard to these principles in the conduct of family law proceedings.

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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At the outset I would like to assure the Deputy that community safety is a top priority for me as Minister and this Government as a whole. The Department's community safety policy is about people being safe and, importantly, feeling safe in their own community. This whole-of-government approach aims to bring together the relevant social services providers, including the Gardaí, to work together with the community and local business leaders in Local Community Safety Partnerships so that they can focus on the matters of concern identified by the local community in which they are operating.

Local Community Safety Partnerships are provided for in Part 3 of the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024, which was signed into law on 7 February 2024. The Act includes a number of provisions relating to the Community Safety Plans.

Each Local Community Safety Partnership will develop and implement a Community Safety Plan, on a 3 year basis, tailored to the community’s needs. Each Partnership will take a strategic approach to their work so that issues arising can be dealt with in a coordinated manner, addressed collectively by relevant service providers in partnership with the community.

Community Safety Plans will be developed with clear targets, which assign responsibility to the relevant service provider. There are significant benefits to the involvement of relevant agencies in developing a community safety plan in each local authority area. It will allow each partnership to deal with issues of community safety which are not strictly within the criminal justice system (e.g. drug misuse, youth services, public lighting, integration and diversity issues).

The Community Safety Plan will be a matter for each Partnership once established. In order to inform the development of its Plan, each Partnership will be required to undertake public consultation for the purpose of identifying local community safety objectives and priorities. The National Office for Community Safety will support the Partnerships in terms of training, guidance and assistance in formulating Local Community Safety Strategies and Action Plans.

The Community Safety Plans will be monitored and reviewed on an ongoing basis. Under the Policing, Security and Community Safety Act 2024, the National Office for Community Safety will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of local community safety plans. The Partnerships will undertake a review of the Plan at least once within its lifecycle, after which the Plan can be amended as appropriate.

The Deputy will be aware that pilot partnerships have been in operation for the last two years, in Longford, Waterford and Dublin North Inner City. All three pilots have now published their respective Community Safety Plans and implementation of specific actions is underway. An independent evaluation has been conducted since the pilot partnerships commenced, and the final report of the evaluation is almost complete. The findings of the evaluation will then be used to inform the national roll-out of Local Community Safety Partnerships and will inform guidance to be developed by the National Office in terms of best practice in the development and implementation of Community Safety Plans.

In 2024, I provided funding of €7.9 million for the creation of a new National Office for Community Safety and to roll out Local Community Safety Partnerships nationwide. This also includes €3.75 million for the Community Safety Innovation Fund, where the proceeds of crime seized by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) are reinvested in projects to benefit local communities across Ireland.