The media is currently filled with discussion of marriage rights and recognition, not least because of the historic US Supreme Court ruling yesterday on the Defence of Marriage Act in California. Marriage is something that is deeply ingrained in religion and culture and marriage practices vary around the world. In Ireland, the struggle for marital […]
At long last a sensible and realistic argument has been made in relation to children who have been involved in family law proceedings. The Chief Executive of Tusla, Gordon Jeyes was reported on Monday to have stated that the level of scrutiny brought to childcare cases in Dublin is “suffocating” and the accountability of social […]
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 […]
It is becoming apparent that the Civil Registration Service is refusing to recognise more and more non EU Divorces. The refusal is often based on their belief that the evidence provided to them does not unequivocally point to the conclusion that either party to the divorce had the required domicile. So what is domicile and […]
I often find myself quoting relevant legislation to clients and then suddenly pulling myself back and realising my clients are not legally trained and as such have no idea what I am talking about! This was brought home to me recently when I brought my car to the garage and after 10 minutes of talking […]
The judge had to decide how much maintenance a mother and the father had to pay to look after their 7-year-old son. The mother earns €60,000 a year, the father earns €20,000 a year. The judge accepted that the earnings figures were correct. When all the evidence had concluded, the mother said could she say […]
I have recently discussed problems that have arisen with section 47 reports in family law cases and I am not sure if it’s coincidence but I have received a number of queries recently in relation to people who are having considerable difficulties with section 47 reports. The main problem appears to be that many clients […]
While it is often portrayed as such, domestic violence does not always involve a female victim and male abuser. A National Study of Domestic Abuse found that 213,000 Irish women and 88,000 Irish men have been severely abused by a partner at some point in their lives. Yet only 5 per cent of those men […]
Over the years I have often written pieces finishing with the sentence “I wonder could this possibly have happened if this man was a woman”. Here is another one. A woman walks into a District Court and tells the judge that seven years ago, my client had a row with her because he suspected she […]
