The referendum on same sex marriages received enormous media attention with the electorate coming out in force to cast their votes in an overwhelming victory for the yes campaign. Ireland stood tall and Ireland stood proud on Saturday 23rd of May. As a Family Law solicitor, I need to think of what lies ahead in […]
Nullity of marriage is a declaration by a court that your marriage is null and void, and that no valid marriage exists between you and your partner. In order for a court to grant a decree of nullity, it must be satisfied that the purported marriage was either void or voidable. A void marriage is […]
The general rule in law is that if you have an agreement with somebody and that other person breaks that agreement and you suffer a loss as a result, you can sue that person for breach of contract. That is not however the position as far as engagements are concerned. If I employ a builder […]
I recently spoke to a child psychologist who said that he was very concerned at the growing number of cases he deals with involving what he described as severe cases of emotional abuse. This generally happens in cases where one parent denies a child contact with the other parent. The psychologist said that in cases […]
According to Enda Kenny, the Children and Family Relationships Bill will be “the most important change in family legislation since the foundation of the State”. So what is all the fuss about and what do you need to know? Over the course of the coming weeks, I intend to go through in more detail the […]
I attended the District Court recently on behalf of my client, an unmarried father of one, who was applying for Guardianship and Access. As with all District Court applications the court always advises applicants and respondents to try and come to some agreement. However, sometimes this is not always possible and despite our best endeavours […]
CIVIL PARTNERSHIP & CERTAIN RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF COHABITANTS This came into law on the 19th of July 2010 and as the name suggests, the Act can be broken down into two main areas. Civil partnership of same sex couples and Unmarried Cohabitants Civil Partnership/Same Sex Couples: For the first time in Ireland same sex […]
Barring Order: A barring order is an order requiring a violent person to leave the family home. The order also prohibits the person from using violence or threats of violence and from watching or being near your home. In order to get a barring order, you must attend the District Court. A barring order can […]
There are three ways in which you can legally separate in Ireland. You can simply agree to separate, you can enter into a Deed of Separation or you can apply for a Judicial Separation. You should only consider entering into a Deed of Separation or seeking a Judicial Separation as an absolute last resort. Every […]
It is unfortunately the case that many marriages in Ireland break down and increasingly couples are seeking to protect themselves, mainly from a financial point of view, in the event of marriage breakdown. With this in mind more and more prenuptial agreements are being completed. A prenuptial agreement can give both parties peace of mind […]
A Pension is considered an asset of a separating couple. The court can order that a pension be divided into whatever shares it considers appropriate or necessary. This is order is known as a Pension Adjustment Order. The most common example is where one spouse has a substantial pension and the other spouse has none. […]
Incredibly there are nearly 200,000 one parent families in Ireland. This figure covers people who have never married but also covers divorced, separated and widowed families. One in five children in Ireland live in a one parent family. The main difficulty in this area is in relation to the non-marital father. There are very serious […]
