FAMILIES MATTERED to the individual, the community and the country, President Mary McAleese told the Family Lawyers Association conference in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, last night.
Pointing to the central place accorded to the family unit in Bunreacht na hÉireann, she said: “That constitutional protection and position remains of paramount importance in framing family law today.
“Underpinning it is a view that the stronger the family the stronger the country, that no matter how nuclear or individuated or isolated families become, their welfare is not simply a personal or private matter,” the President added.
She told the conference, according to a supplied script: “You are not doctors, psychiatrists or psychologists, you are not pastoral counsellors or life coaches, yet in the field of family law practice, more than any other area of legal practice, you are right in the front line of the frequently painful fall- out from the breakdown of people’s most profound and intimate relationships.
“This form of legal practice is not the same as most others, for you face into the immediacy of high levels of grief, regret, anger, fear, resentment, worry, distrust and all the rest.
She said exceptional personal skills of wisdom, diplomacy and empathy were needed, “which are not always routinely taught in law school or found in legal texts”.