Taking the conflict out of marriage break-ups

Lifestyle – Dearbhla Geraghty hears how Helplink’s Conflict Resolution Centre eases some of the pain

Mediation is becoming a necessary alternative to the courts for couples who need immediate help in dealing with the practicalities of a marriage break-up.

Lorraine Lally of Helplink’s Conflict Resolution Centre (CRC) says that some couples are waiting up to nine months to avail of the State’s free Family Mediation Service, but that this is too long when there are more pressing matters to be dealt with.

“There can be financial difficulties, and as the housing shortage is very severe, a lot of people are trying to live in the same house (together) until their divorce is finalised – that can be up to four years,” says the centre’s manager.

“But they need immediate assistance dealing with practical issues such as space, paying bills, and sometimes even negotating with the bank.

“For these practical issues, the courts are not accessible, because they need to be separated for a certain period of time to get access – Judges want to see a minimum of two years’ separation before they come before the court, so they need to consider mediation.”

A qualified barrister herself, she says that the Family Law Act 1976, which brought mediation to Ireland, states that lawyers have to advise their clients about the option of mediation before pursuing matters in court, although she is is skeptical that this actually happens in reality.

“If you engage in court, it’s the lawyers that talk, and not the parties, so the benefit of mediation is that the parties get their own voice, and get to be heard.

“I’ve met people who’ve been in the District Court 16 times, and nothing has been resolved. And each time they have had to get a day off work, and make child care provisions – mediation gives you a certain amount of control and self-determination of the issues.”

She hopes that Judges on this side of the country will follow the lead of colleagues in Dublin by pointing couples towards mediation before even considering the courts.

“There are Judges in Dublin and they tell lawyers: ‘Don’t come into me until you have tried mediation – have you put your child’s issues before your own, and have you turned up for that (mediation).’

“Judges are changing policy and changing opinions when they tell the lawers that – by doing this, they are separating the more difficult cases from the more easily resolved matters.

“There is still a place for lawyers, and there are matters that need to go to court, such as if there were serious ideological issues – like, if one parent was a Jehovah’s Witness and did not want their child to have a blood transfusion.”

She says that with Ireland becoming a much more multi-cultural society, and it being more common for parents to come from different religious and cultural backgrounds, there are conflicts over how to raise their children.

In these cases, she says, the courts are a better place, but that mediation can resolve the less complicated ones.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.