Work-to-rule action affecting family law court hearings

Work-to-rule action in the Dublin District Court family law courts has led to repeated court closures and adjournments of cases in the past five weeks.

Legal professionals have warned it is placing strain on their clients and will result in a backlog in the family law system.

Public service unions have been engaged in a work-to-rule since the end of September as part of the public sector pay dispute.

The trade union Fórsa said work-to-rule means workers cannot cover the work of vacant posts in their workplace.

In Dolphin House in Dublin, a specialised district court that only hears family law matters, the necessary staff that are required for a court to sit have not always been available since the work-to-rule began.

Two of the five courts have regularly been closed. Yesterday, three of the five courts were closed.

Solicitor Sandra McAleer said she and her clients are not given advance notice of whether the court will be closed or not, and many of her clients who are scheduled to appear at hearings arrive at court that morning only to be told it has been adjourned.

One woman, who cannot be identified, said her hearing has been adjourned at least five times in the past five weeks. She said when she is preparing to go to court "my heart is in my mouth", and it is "frustrating and stressful" to have it postponed multiple times.

She said she finds it very difficult to not have certainty for her children, and it is difficult to arrange time off work and childcare every time she is scheduled to go to court.

Adjournments a 'huge stress on clients' - solicitor

Ms McAleer said she estimates around 400 hearings may have been adjourned so far, and this will create a backlog in the system when the work-to-rule ends.

"It's a huge, huge stress on clients," she said. "Ultimately, if the case is not heard, it's the children that would suffer in the end.

"We support the work to rule, and most of my colleagues would support the work to rule, but in circumstances where this court especially has been affected in court 40 and 49, there is a huge amount of people being affected and it is a case where we support them but there has to be some priority for children and children's rights."

However, despite the work-to-rule, arrangements have been made for urgent domestic violence applications at Dolphin House. This was also the case during the public sector strike day on 14 October.

In Court 41 on Tuesday, domestic violence applications being made included cases such as a mother applying for a protection order against an adult daughter living in her house who had kicked and beaten her.

In another case, a woman and her adult daughter were granted protection orders against their partner/father, who lives in their home and made threats to kill them.

Anxiety over status of safety orders

Sarah Benson, the CEO of Women's Aid, said the multiple adjournments of other cases in Dolphin House are causing "a degree of stress and anxiety".

"A particular anxiety is emerging where people are worried that if their safety order hearing is not going ahead, if it's been adjourned, that the status of their temporary order may not be valid.

"We have absolute assurance from the courts, from the judiciary, that is not the case. And so, we'd really like to reassure anyone who has had their safety order adjourned, even if the administration of sending the update of a new date hasn't issued, that doesn't impact the status of their order. And the gardaí have also shared that information amongst their members as well.

"What we want to emphasise, particularly around protection where somebody has a temporary order for domestic violence, if they feel at risk, if they feel under threat, is not to hesitate to phone the gardaí."

In a statement, Fórsa said: "The nature of work-to-rule is that the flexibilities and good will, upon which most public services rely, is withdrawn.

"Workers continue to work to their contract of employment but withdraw their cooperation with out of hours work and, for example, covering the work of vacant posts in their workplace.

"The action is designed to maximise the effect of action on the employer and minimising the effect on service users. However, the longer this type of action continues, the more disruptive the effect of the industrial action.

"Fórsa and other unions continue to work to bring this dispute to an end. The sooner this is achieved, the sooner any affected public services can resume to its normal operational capacity."

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please visit rte.ie/helplines.