A call for a reform of the Constitution insofar as children's rights are concerned has been made by a family law solicitor.
Rosemary Horgan said the Constitution already possessed quite similar rights to many rights set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.
"We have however, some areas where our present arrangements (or lack of them) are not as satisfactory as they might be. There is little doubt about the need for a full NCT for the Constitution insofar as children's rights are concerned," she said.
There was always a time lag in the development of family law to match social developments. This time lag was elongated in Ireland, however, as the family law system was cemented into the family value system enshrined in the Constitution in 1937.
Families had changed a lot since then. The law had struggled to fit all of these developments within the straitjacket of the constitutional provisions which only supported the family unit based on marriage, she said.
Demographically, Ireland along with other European countries showed profound change in the past two decades.
Ms Horgan said that the extent to which the non-conventional family replaced the nuclear family was evident. Equally clear were the relatively low but increasing number of separations and divorces. Melded families following divorce, separation and cohabitation were no longer rare but a fact of modern life.
The legal rights of the individual family members were more frequently coming before the courts for illumination and determination. Increasingly, courts must deal with disputes involving spouses of different nationalities or spouses who lived or worked in different countries from each other, she said.
"This relatively new dynamic brings both challenges and opportunities for practitioners who must of necessity come to terms with new European law potential solutions," she said.
Gerard Durcan SC, family law specialist, said there had been very limited data about the operation of the family law courts. There was a need for more information, particularly to see if any trends were emerging by way of a picture of inconsistency in judgments and rulings.
However, he hoped that the pilot Courts Service family law reporting service undertaken by Carol Coulter would provide data that would be helpful to practitioners.