Clones Courthouse
It`s April 2014. Clones District Court has since been closed by the Courts Service. It didn`t mean anything to Mary at the time, but it will now.
Mary was married in April 2008. She had 3 children. More recently her husband has started beating her. She had given up work before she had their first child and has no independent means of support. She does not own a car. She was told by a friend that she should apply for a Barring Order against her husband, to get him out of the home, and get her life sorted out.
She decides to seek legal advice.
Mary goes to her local Solicitor. She tells her story. Her solicitor tells her that he can represent her but that it will be necessary to prosecute her case in Monaghan District, which is 12 miles away. This causes immediate concern for Mary; not least because she had assumed that she might be able to make this Application in her local Court, unknown to her husband while he was at work and her children were at school. The problem is that she will now be required to be away longer from her home.
As an aside, her solicitor tells her that there was a campaign launched locally to save the Courthouse facility in 2013 when closure was threatened. Mary recalled that she did hear something about this at the time but it meant nothing to her at that time : she never thought she would need to go to Court.
The Journey to Court
Mary arrived in Court the following month. She managed to get a lift from a friend, who told her that she could come back for her at 3pm, but no later, as she had to collect her own children from school. Mary couldn`t get a bus to Court as the bus only goes to Monaghan at 8am. Having waited around all day she was informed by her solicitor at 3pm that her case was not going to get on that day. Unfortunately, with the closing of Ballybay and Clones District Courts in recent years and the removal of their Lists to an already overloaded Monaghan District Court List, the Court List in Monaghan had got even busier, with the result that no-one was ever guaranteed to get their case on for hearing on the day. It was too late for Mary to get her lift from her friend. She finally managed to get the 6 o`clock bus from Monaghan to Clones. By that stage the children were hungry and tired. They could not understand where their mother had been all day. Mary`s problem was that her husband was now on notice of her application and this was going to give rise to further problems for her.
And the Court is adjourned again.
Mary manages to travel to the Court in Monaghan 3 more times before her case was heard. On one occasion she had to bring one of her children with her as it was a school training day and she simply could not leave her youngest at home when she was going to be away in another town all day. She was obliged to get loans to pay friends for driving her to Court. Worst of all, her husband was extremely violent with her initially, until she got a Protection Order (an interim Order, pending the Hearing of the case) against him. Mary feels totally alienated by the system. While she obtained a Custody Order over the children her husband has told her that he is going to apply to vary that Order. This will mean undertaking once again the journeys to Monaghan District Court and the extreme inconvenience and family disruption previously suffered.
Mary swears on many occasions that, had she known that the closure of Clones District Court would have meant this catastrophic effect on her life, she would have immediately enrolled the assistance of her TD in objecting to this move by the Department.
Que Sera Sera
There are many in Mary`s position; many who thought that the closure of a local court was of no consequence to them. But this will also inconvenience people on Traffic Summonses and related Offences, Witnesses to Civil and Criminal Cases and young people who get in trouble with the law. Needless to say, it will cause greater problems for those who are less well off than others; but such issues appear to be of no concern to Decision Makers and Strategists in the Courts Service.
You never miss something until you lose it!