Divorce applications increase significantly during the first three months of this year

Applications for divorce rose significantly in the first three months of this year, particularly in Dublin where 475 couples moved to end their marriages, according to official figures released yesterday.

Ms Muriel Walls, a solicitor and author of The Law on Divorce in Ireland, said a reflection of this upward trend was a decision by Dublin Circuit Court to allocate two days a week to hearing applications for uncontested divorces.

She said such applications could be determined within eight weeks in Dublin but took longer around the State.

Contested divorce applications could take between six months and a year to be heard around the State.

Ms Walls also raised concerns about the non-reporting of divorce cases in the Circuit Courts, a concern echoed by a barrister, Mr Cormac Corrigan. He said there were inconsistencies in the manner in which divorce law was interpreted in different areas.

He said Circuit Court judges heard many divorce cases but there was seldom a written judgment and practitioners had no body of case law to assist in advising clients.

Reports of such cases, in a manner which did not identify the parties, would be helpful. Reports on the amount of maintenance awarded and other matters would be of great assistance.

Ms Walls called for more detailed statistics on marital breakdown and said it was extraordinary, in the public interest, that these were unavailable.

Legal sources estimate some 5,000 applications for divorce have been made to date, of which 2,700 have been granted, leaving a backlog of more than 2,000.

A Department of Justice spokesman said yesterday official figures for total applications up to July would be available shortly. According to the most recent figures, 760 applications for divorce were received in the State in the first quarter of 1998, of which 435 were granted.

In the same period this year, 931 applications were received and 574 granted.

In Dublin, 475 applications were made between January and March this year, of which 314 have been granted, a marked increase on the same quarter in 1998 when 352 applications were received, of which 196 were granted.

Overall, the number of divorce applications rose in 16 counties and fell in nine. In Co Kildare, the number remained the same at 15.

The figure for applications rose significantly in Cos Cork (from 62 to 90) and Waterford (from six to 37) over the relevant quarters.

In Galway, the number of applicants fell from 43 to 29. A decline in applications was also returned for Cavan, Letterkenny, Limerick, Portlaoise, Sligo, Tralee and Wicklow.

Cavan, Portlaoise and Longford had the lowest level of applications at three each.

A senior legal source said yesterday he was not surprised at the latest figures.

"When divorce came in February 1997, there was a time lag to see how it would work. The first applicants tended to be people who had things sorted out and there was no contest.

"Now more people are putting their feet in the water and we're seeing the contested cases." He said there was no "avalanche" of cases but rather a steady upward trend. "Divorce is a new remedy and people are getting used to it."