Liz O'Donnell
Ceist:19 Ms O'Donnell asked the Minister for Equality and Law Reform the amount of funding requested by voluntary organisations for counselling and mediation services for 1997. [4508/97]
Written Answers. - Mediation Services.
Ivor Callely
Ceist:68 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Equality and Law Reform the level of mediation and counselling services available; if he received submissions for additional services; the progress and consideration, if any, of additional services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4563/97]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 19 and 68 together.
My Department operates a scheme of grants for the purpose of assisting voluntary organisations which provide marriage counselling services and child counselling services where the parents have separated. The sum of £900,000 has been made available in 1997 to my Department for this purpose. Application forms for the 1997 grants were issued recently by my Department and I hope to be in a position to arrange for the early payment of the first instalment of the 1997 grant to those organisations that meet the eligibility criteria attaching to the scheme of grants. No completed applications forms have been returned to my Department to date and consideration of the amount of grant that will be paid to individual organisations must await the scrutiny of the grant application forms when they are received in the Department.
As these services are provided by voluntary organisations it would not be appropriate for me to instruct them to provide additional services. They may, however, be encouraged by the financial assistance which they receive from my Department to respond to developing needs. I am not considering any alterations to the existing scheme of marriage and child counselling grants for 1997.
Family mediation is a professional confidential service which enables couples who have decided to separate or who have already separated to negotiate their own separation agreement with the help of a trained mediator, without resorting to adjudication through the courts. All issues are included in the negotiations, such as ongoing parenting of the children, the family home, family finances, pensions, property and any other issues relevant to the separation.
Any money available for mediation is used in the running of the family mediation service, which is operated by my Department. Expenditure on the family mediation service in 1996 was approximately £232,000 and £300,000 is available for this purpose in 1997, having regard to the development plan for the service.
The first stage of the programme for the development and expansion of the family mediation service is almost complete. A new service co-ordinator was appointed on 4 November 1996. The new post of area mediation co-ordinator for the new centre at Mill House, Henry Street, Limerick, was filled on 2 December 1996 and the appointment of an area mediation co-ordinator to the existing family mediation centre at the Irish Life Centre, Lower Abbey Street, Dublin, will be made during the coming week. The persons appointed will be responsible for delivery of a quality mediation service, with the assistance of a team of mediators, each for his or her own geographical areas of responsibility.
With the management structure in place it is now possible to proceed with the recruitment of further staff for the service and this is proceeding apace. In this regard, Deputies may have noticed advertisements recently in the national newspapers, and in some provincial newspapers, seeking applications for positions as part-time mediators with the family mediation service.
The appointment of area mediation co-ordinators would also facilitate the establishment of a scheme for the use of mediators in private practice, who have the necessary training and experience and otherwise meet the standards set by the family mediation service, to provide family mediation at locations distant from a family mediation centre or to relieve pressure on the centres at Dublin or Limerick as required. The allocation of cases to private mediators would be done through the family mediation service. By these means I expect that in time a truly national quality mediation service will be available to couples wishing to negotiate their own separation agreements.