Mediation expert says Ireland’s divorce system in need of an overhaul
Expert who has experienced two broken marriages herself calls for pre-nuptial legislation
Sometimes love isn’t enough. That’s the hard-earned wisdom of Irish divorce expert Michelle Browne, a family mediator who has written a new book that provides an eye-opening critique of the divorce system in Ireland and calls on the Government to finally introduce legislation for pre-nuptial agreements, more than 25 years after divorce was first introduced here.
In the book, Scars of Divorce: How to avoid them and achieve an amicable divorce in Modern Ireland, Browne argues that the only section of society benefiting from the absence of pre-nuptial legislation are lawyers who can earn vast sums of money when high net-worth marriages break down.
“We are not talking about solving the housing crisis. This is legislation for a simple contract,” she says, but “there is an incentive from very powerful people to keep the status quo”.
Browne has personally experienced two marriage breakdowns and has spent hundreds of hours mediating with couples who want to call it quits.
Mediation allows a couple to make their own decisions, rather than going to court and having a judge make them. Mediation can be an effective, cheaper and quicker alternative to court.
Speaking from her practice in Naas, Co Kildare, Browne lists the most common reasons couples seek her mediation skills. They are infidelity, stress-related issues and “loss of interest”.
When it comes to infidelity, technology is the usual way the cheater is found out.
“Nine times out of 10, the mobile phone catches people out. One person goes through the other person’s phone and reads their text messages,” she explains.
Despite security features like facial recognition and touch ID, passcodes are the back-up option and can eventually be seen. As Browne says: “People of my generation aren’t as tech savvy. They think they are deleting messages when they are not.”
The stories that have come across her desk over the years have been “eye-watering”, she says. “Nothing shocks me any more. Second families that people don’t know about, or a child out of an affair who is living down the road. Finding out about another child is about as difficult as it gets.”
She estimates between 60pc and 70pc of those who have affairs are men “but there are women having affairs out there too”. Experience has taught her not to waste time hoping anyone will confess to extramarital activities.
“That’s something that I’ve realised the longer I do this. Many clients continue to ‘deny, deny, deny’ even as the final papers are being drawn up,” she says.
Last-minute glitches also cause problems: “Someone realises that tickets have been bought to Paris or he has bought a new car for the girlfriend and that throws a spanner in the works.”
However, she says in mediation “it doesn’t matter what each party has done to the other — the main thing is to reach a settlement that both sides feel is fair”.
Given the pain that leads to her door, Browne says she is determined to make the process as easy as possible. The reason she is speaking out is because she believes the Irish divorce system is causing “untold damage” and needs to be overhauled.
Explaining how mediation differs from