Divorce costs - Adding to the pain

Finding yourself across a courtroom from an estranged partner, flanked by a very expensive legal team, is as chastening an experience as any of us would wish to face.

It’s been more than a decade since divorce was legalised and there is a strong body of evidence that a full-on court confrontation is not the best way to resolve these issues. Some are so fraught that there is little alternative. There is the reality, too, that these cases, despite the pain and tragedy involved, are a very lucrative line of income for the legal profession.

Justice Minister Alan Shatter is an expert in family law and surely he could devise a scheme that would be less traumatic and expensive for the litigants. These couples are in enough difficulty already without being more or less held to ransom by legal advisers.