Mediation offers separating couples way to avoid stress of court battles

Separating couples anxious to avoid taking their child custody and property battles to court have been turning in increasing numbers to the Family Mediation Service.

The service, set up two years ago by the Legal Aid Board and the Courts Service, has just concluded its 500th agreement and moves are under way to expand it beyond the city locations where it currently operates.

Couples applying to the free service can be married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting, and the main stipulation for participation is that they need to share a wish to avoid the courts where proceedings can be costly, lengthy, adversarial and acrimonious.

Professional mediators handle their case and do not take sides, instead working to find common ground between the partners and getting them to reach mutual agreement on issues like parenting, property ownership and financial support.

Brendan Ryan, chief executive of the Courts Service, described the 500th agreement as an important milestone. “The benefits from the service are significant, as couples find a way of reaching agreements, without the stress of having to appear in court.

“These type of agreements are likely to last for longer, as the couples themselves were drawing up the solutions, rather than having a solution imposed on them.”

Once agreement is reached, it can be taken to solicitors to be drawn into a legal contract, or used as the basis for a court order.

Dr Moling Ryan, chief executive of the Legal Aid Board, said the advantage of the service was that it helped separating or divorcing couples work out solutions to their differences.

“Mediation provides them with an opportunity to state their wishes, in a respectful environment,” she said. This benefited both parents and children.

If mediation does not succeed, the parties can still go for a court hearing in the usual way but couples who have already begun court proceedings can step back and try mediation.

Mediation still accounts for a modest proportion of the couples splitting up — there were 3,363 divorce applications and 1,391 judicial separation applications to the courts in 2011.

But the demand for the service after it was established in Dublin in March 2011 led to its roll-out to Cork, Galway and Limerick and there are also part-time offices in ten other counties.

*Further information can be found at www.legalaidboard.ie and general information and application forms for family law matters are available at www.courts.ie