Many more people need to know that The Mediation Act 2017 has come into power since Jan 1st 2018 and all legal proceedings now require that both parties consider mediation before going further. Litigation is very costly, adversarial and takes place in public with the press being able to report on proceedings.
Mediation on the other hand is confidential, collaborative through the facilitation of a qualified and registered mediator and you both get to author the final written agreement. Mediation is a process in which an independent, neutral Mediator assists two or more disputing parties in resolving the dispute in a collaborative, consensual manner.
In fact, the entire legal system in Ireland is changing culture, in that, mediation is going to be used as a first course of action in disputes more and more from now on. This is fantastic news as a dispute that goes through mediation can be done and dusted in a day.
Mediators specialising in separations and divorce can support both parties to get to a written legal agreement in a day and costing on average 2,000 Euros as compared to 20,000 Euros which has become roughly the norm. Therefore one can easily see the savings to be made for the family and also the reduction in potential heartbreak and stress of a long drawn out adversarial process.
The exact same process can be successfully applied to land disputes.
There is a list of qualified mediators on the MII website
Mediation can help to resolve family farm disputes and more info and qualified mediators will be available on the MII stand Block 2, Row 11, Stand 243.
In addition, MII will make a number of mediation information presentations on the stand at intervals over the 3 days. Make sure you catch one of these especially if you are a community leader in farming communities that could tremendously benefit from mediation rather than litigation to resolve all manner of disputes.
Mediation can also be used in disputes with banks.
The courts will be asking you to consider mediation first anyways so why not get the ‘heads up’ when you are at the Ploughing Championships this year.
Pass this info on as you never know who would need it and it would be great if people left with the conviction to try and resolve their disputes through mediation.
This could save some people a lot of hardship and grief anything that can do that is always worth checking out.