The Labour Party's justice spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, has tabled a written question to the Minister for Justice about the circumstances in which a Circuit Court judge in Wexford had to sit until almost midnight on Wednesday to finish a lengthy list of family law cases.
Judge Olive Buttimer sat from 10 a.m. until 11.15 p.m. hearing family law cases, most of them related to divorce applications.
Wexford Circuit Court has seen a dramatic increase in the number of family law cases coming before it since the Divorce Act came into effect in February 1997. An estimated 90 per cent of the cases involve divorce applications.
"Judge Buttimer receives one day four times a year for family law cases and that is totally inadequate", said Mr Tony Ensor, a Wexford solicitor. "She knows there is a certain urgency about family law matters, that people want to regularise their arrangements or perhaps remarry. For that reason she burns the midnight oil."
There has been no increase in the number of court staff to deal with family law cases in Wexford and no facilities have been provided for people appearing in court. "Litigants have to consult with their solicitors and barristers in cubbyholes in the corridor. In my view, it is very demeaning," Mr Ensor added.
He said that the situation in Wexford highlighted the need for a separate division of the courts system, dealing exclusively with family law from the District Court right through to the High Court.