The ability to effectively manage conflict is a vital skill in both professional and personal relations. However, in the heat of a dispute, reason, judgment and the ability to communicate can very quickly fall by the wayside. Many such disputes, which result in a breakdown of reasonable relations and even litigation, could be settled amicable through the direction of a mediator.

UCD's diploma in mediation studies is a one-year part-time course designed to develop mediation skills for use in the workplace or for beginning a career in mediation. "Mediation is a new profession across the world with a skills and theoretical backdrop that's been building since the 1980s," Delma Sweeney, one of the course directors, says.

The course is divided into nine modules of lectures, skills training and tutorials, held one day a week over the year. The modules are taught by experienced practitioners in different areas of mediation.

"The lectures concentrate of different areas where mediation is useful, such as family mediation, community mediation, workplace mediation, bullying, marital mediation, labour relations, marital mediation multi-party disputes and victim-offender mediation," says Sweeney.

During the course students learn how to manage conflict and negotiation; they learn the theory of conflict and power imbalances and how to work as a mediator through the lectures, exercises and role play. Students are also required to undertake project work and end-of-year examinations in May. Successful graduates are awarded part one accreditation by the Mediators Institute Ireland.

Applicants to the course must be at least 24 years old, have a relevant primary degree and experience or substantial experience related to mediation through their work or training. Mediation training has applications in many different spheres, as Sweeney explains.

"Social workers, people involved in labour relations, solicitors, union negotiators, human resource managers and garda∅ are just some of the people who take the course."

A recent graduate of the diploma, Garda Denis Nagle, says mediation training has been a great asset to his work as a community garda in Blackrock, Cork.

"Our training is very legally based and I wanted to do a course that was more hands on. I had read about alternative dispute resolution and had though about doing a counselling course, but in counselling you're taking on a lot of other people's baggage, whereas mediation is about empowering people to come up with their own solutions."

Nagle began the diploma in September 2000, travelling from Cork to Dublin each Monday for lectures. "The course went very deep into the basis of conflict and showed how it can be healthy. What makes the difference is how it is dealt with."

Mediation is not a panacea, he says, but it has been very useful in a number of community disputes. "We only see an ongoing dispute when it's out of control and usually when lot of people have got involved in what started as a small argument. If you can go in with the structures learned in the mediation training and get all parties talking, you can preserve relationships. Whereas if they went through the legal process, the conflict wouldn't go away."

Nagle says many disputes that end up in the courts could be solved earlier through mediation. "Litigation is a win-lose situation - and with legal costs both sides end up losing, but mediation is win-win, where both sides compromise and accept they have to change."

Mediation is about peacemaking and peacekeeping, which are central to the work of the Garda, he says. "The Garda S∅ochana are the guardians of the peace and mediation is a way of enriching the community."