Deputy Nuala Fennel gave me notice of her intention to raise on the Adjournment the subject matter of the future of the family mediation scheme. The Deputy has ten minutes to present her case and the Minister of State has five minutes to reply.
Adjournment Debate. - Family Mediation Scheme.
I thank you sincerely, Sir, for allowing me the time and I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House to hear the debate. Probably it shows persistence pays in the end because this is very dear to my heart and I have been trying for about three weeks to get this debate.
Many of the Members in this House are also concerned and very curious and anxious about the outcome of this mediation service which has just finished a three year pilot programme. A great many people throughout the country are also concerned and interested in this scheme. As a political cause if falls into an area that probably is not the most dramatic or urgent but it is vital for a certain group of people, those whose marriages have come to an end but it lacks the drama, energy or urgency of other political causes.
First of all I will give a short background to the scheme. It was set up in July 1986 by myself when I was Minister of State in Department of Justice. It was in response to many requests from various groups and professionals working in the marriage breakdown area. It was then staffed by a co-ordinator, four part-time mediators and a clerical officer as secretary-receptionist. A training programme was arranged for the staff in the most up-to-date mediation techniques from the US and the UK with adaptaions, of course, to deal with the Irish legal environment.
The outcome of careful planning and a committed, dedicated committee and staff — the committee were voluntary and chaired by solicitor Jim Higgins, and the staff administrator was and is Maura Wall-Murphy — was that this small group brought forward a mediation service in Dublin located in the Irish Life Centre which established an excellent record for careful and caring work, despite great difficulties with clerical staff. For more than a year now the service has operated without a receptionist, having had to manage with an occasional part-time telephonist. This is really strangling the service and is most unfair to them. It means highly trained mediators who are doing very sensitive work have to leave mediation sessions to answer the phone. I suggest to the Minister that it shows a gross lack of either knowledge or understanding of what mediation service is. Referrals come from a wide range of sources, from doctors, politicians, solicitors, community workers, and legal aid centres, and the phone is really the lifeline of the service and cannot be left unattended. I suggest it is a petty, cost-cutting exercise to treat both the personnel in the service and the clients in this manner. Therefore, I ask the Minister of State to intervene with the Minister for Justice and ask him to ensure that a permanent receptionist is located at the centre on a full-time basis immediately.
I want to put issues other than this matter. After three years in operation there is now a report on the pilot programme, a very comprehensive report with recommendations and proposals for the future of the service. This report makes proposals for training, education and the development of the service into other cities where it is badly needed. I support these proposals.
It is also suggested that the service should be permanent and that the staff there should be able to work on something more than a day-to-day, week-by-week arrangement as they are doing at present. This process is dealing with marriage breakdown and it is the greatest hope of couples who are handicapped by both lack of divorce and a cumbersome system of law. Through mediation, couples and their children can agree on a whole range of issues. They can get an agreement drawn up on custody, maintenance or property with no bitterness and minimum hostility, a far greater chance of staying away from the courts and the mediation service from then on and a greater opportunity to become civilised, so to speak, and friendly with each other, to their benefit and that of their children in later years. This is not an idle claim.
Therefore, I appeal very strongly that this service be maintained and developed and put on a proper, permanent basis. It is not a luxury. We live in a country where marriage breakdown is so often grimly fought out in our courts at enormous financial and personal cost and great family distress. Anyone familiar with this will verify the unique and important role of this mediation service, the only one in the country. It is available to anybody and is free.
I understand Government difficulties with public spending. I know the numerous demands there are for funding. I am happy that the Estimates provide for the continuation of the service for the next year but I want a commitment and agreement to read the report and understand the proposals in it. I suggest we need more than one centre. After three years this service has proved itself beyond all doubt. A centre is needed in Cork to deal with marriage breakdown in that area. Obviously we must begin in a small way but with the aim of having as wide a service as possible available eventually.
I suggest to the Minister for Justice, who is not here for the debate, that he would get much credit for taking an interest in this area of his Department which is not in the area of criminality, of prisons or the Garda but which is in the social area. It is an area in which he has a responsibility and in which he can do an enormous amount of good.
The present treatment of the service is certainly not in the spirit of the commitment given by the Taoiseach in a preelection commitment to the Council for the Status of Women when they asked him about the continuation of this service because they saw it as a very important priority. The Taoiseach gave that commitment in June 1989 when he said:
The Family Mediation Service introduced three years ago as a pilot scheme in the Dublin area has now completed that phase. The Government, recognising the important role that Mediation can play in the difficult area of marital breakdown, have decided to maintain the existing service and to expand it to other parts of the country as resources permit.
I suggest that the resources should permit us to some extent to develop and improve this service and that the Minister of State convey to the Minister for Justice, not only my view but the general view, that the service should not be allowed atrophy and die. That is what I think is happening because of the treatment the service is getting at present. If we lose this service it will be a great loss to many people who are suffering grievously because of unhappy and broken marriages. It would be very difficult to re-establish the service at its present level.
The Taoiseach showed great understanding in the commitment he gave. I am asking that the Department and the Minister for Justice show comparable understanding. He has a report before him of the pilot scheme and the proposals suggested. I asked a question early in November about that report and about what the outcome would be. The answer I got was that the Minister and his Department were considering it. I have since heard that a committee are likely to be set up to look at the committee that have been operating in this area for three years. I suggest we do not need any more committees. What we need is action and a personal commitment from the Minister indicating that he has as much faith in this service as I have, as many more people have and, as apparently, the Taoiseach has.
First, I want to thank Deputy Fennell for raising this very important matter. It is an area in which I know she has deep concern. I wish to apologise for the inability of my colleague, Deputy Burke, Minister for Justice, to be here. He is attending a meeting of the Anglo-Irish Agreement.
As the House will be aware, the Estimates for 1990 have now been settled and a sum of £103,000 is being provided for the family mediation service. This provision will enable the service to continue to operate, at least in its present form, until the end of 1990.
At the outset it would be important to give some background on mediation in marital breakdown cases and on how the family mediation service came about.
Mediation enables husbands and wives to resolve matters relating to their children, to maintenance and to the family home on the basis of consent rather than conflict. It provides neutral territory free from distressing associations and interruptions where the couple can talk in privacy and handle the issues directly. It encourages the couple to take control of their own affairs and to work out their own solutions.
In March 1985 a steering committee was appointed to draw up a pilot family mediation scheme and, subject to approval, to provide a service in accordance with the terms of such scheme, on an experimental basis for a period of up to three years. The committee was also required to provide for independent assessment of the effectiveness of the scheme on a continuous basis and, at the end of the experimental period, to report to the Minister for Justice on its effectiveness. That experimental period came to an end in July last and since then the service has been allowed to operate as before pending a decision on its future.
At the end of September last the Minister for Justice received the steering committee's report on the effectiveness of the pilot scheme during its three year operation. He also received the third annual research report on the pilot scheme which contains very useful statistics. The Minister has studied these reports carefully and they will be of great assistance to him in arriving at a decision on the future structure of the mediation service.
As I have said already, mediation facilitates husbands and wives in a marital breakdown situation to take control of their own affairs and to work out their own solutions in a non-adversarial way. In this context the House will be aware that last April the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, 1989, became law. Section 5 and 6 of that Act which came into operation on 19 October 1989, require solicitors to certify that they have discussed with their clients, prior to proceedings for judicial separation, the alternatives to court proceedings. One of those alternatives is mediation to help effect an agreed separation. The fact that these legal provisions exist is indicative of the Government's support for and commitment to the mediation process. What now needs to be decided in relation to mediation is how the service should be delivered in the future.
Before setting the service on a permanent footing, however, there is a number of wider issues which need to be addressed. In the light of experience and the knowledge gained from the operation of the pilot scheme, the various ways of providing a mediation service need to be carefully examined. To assist the Minister in this he proposes to appoint a committee to examine all the various options having regard, among other things, to such matters as quality of service, geographical distribution and cost-effectiveness and to advise him accordingly. He will then put proposals to Government in the matter. The points raised here by Deputy Fennell have been carefully noted by officials from the Department of Justice who will communicate the information and her views to the Minister with a view to putting recommendations to the Government in the very near future.
The question I asked was not answered. What is the situation with regard to the appointment of a receptionist? The delay in this regard is hampering the work greatly. I would ask if the Minister of State can give a commitment on that?
I will convey the concerns the Deputy has expressed to my colleague, the Minister for Justice, and I will request him to investigate the matter urgently.