NEW domestic violence laws have "hugely" widened the jurisdiction of the district courts but the judges have not been provided with sufficient back up, the President of the District Court, Judge Peter Smithwick, said yesterday.
He said the changes enshrined in the Domestic Violence Act 1996 were "revolutionary in a good sense". They include safety orders directing any adult in a house not to use physical or mental violence against the person who sought the order - usually a woman seeking protection against a spouse, partner or adult son.
The Act also gives the district court the power to issue a barring order against a grown up child or an unmarried partner. However, the judge told a conference on domestic violence, that judges often had no expert help with such cases.
"If children are involved, the health board may be called in," he said, but if there were no dependent children, "the court has no professional assistance".
"It should be possible for the court to be able to order an appropriate professional report," he said. "It should also be possible for the court to order a probation report. The Probation Service with a modest increase in numbers could provide this service and in most cases theirs would be the only report needed."
Dr Harry Ferguson of University College Cork said health professionals should promote a policy in which violent men are arrested and made to face their responsibility for their behaviour they should stop avoiding the necessity to make violent men accountable for their actions.
The two day conference is jointly organised by the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, Womens Aid, the Irish Association of Social Workers and Centrecare. It continues today.