Sir, - Carol Coulter (March 9th) states that the 1996 Domestic Violence Act extended protection to common-law spouses. Your readers should be aware that there is no legal concept of common-law spouse in the Republic of Ireland. Using the term common-law spouse suggests that the person is covered by laws relating to marriage. It is still a fact that there is very little legal protection for people who choose to live together outside of marriage, i.e. cohabit.
The Act introduced three distinct orders - safety order, protection order and barring order. It also extended protection to cohabiting people, cohabiting couples, parents, and others living together in a domestic relationship.
However the barring order against a cohabiting partner will only be granted where "the partner has lived with the wrongdoer as husband/wife for at least 6 months out of the previous 9 months and the applicant must have ownership rights in the home in order to qualify for a barring order".
This may partly account for the numbers of barring order applications withdrawn. - Yours, etc.,
Patricia McKay, Rathgar, Dublin 6.
Carol Coulter writes: Ms McKay is correct that there is no legal protection for "common law spouses" per se. The term was used by the Courts Service in compiling the figures as a short description of the conditions she describes.