Community Mediation Donegal

It offers the participants an opportunity to discuss their concerns and needs. It also protects and strengthens relationships into the future, builds connections between people and groups, and creates a forum where it is possible to solve disputes within the community and IT helps restore the balance needed to bring harmony back into the areas faced with conflict. The mediator guides the participants through conversations, providing a safe environment to discuss each of the participant’s problems and needs whilst they retain their own decision-making authority in addressing their own and their community’s unique conflict needs.

The process is an entirely voluntary one whereby the mediator help participants work together to resolve the dispute. This involves face-to-face conversation where the participants hear each other’s concerns and then work with each other to come up with ideas for the resolution of the dispute. The mediator will control the process and will actively listen to each side separately and then to allow everyone an opportunity to have their say. The mediator is impartial and will not take sides or give advice, and support the participants through the process. The participants can either then develop solutions that meet their own particular needs unique to their own situation or indeed to agree on parts of the dispute and to park for the time being the parts of the conflict they are not yet ready to face or address.

Case example: A music promoter wishes to bring a big music star to play a number of concerts in a football stadium in a built up residential neighbourhood. Residents of the neighbourhood are concerned about noise levels, litter, anti-social behaviour, traffic flow, aesthetics and property values. Local meetings have been loud and contentious as residents have made their concerns known. A community mediator is called in to facilitate meetings where all the stakeholders have the opportunity to voice their opinions, ask questions and offer ideas as to how to meet the resident’s needs and minimising disruption to the neighbourhood. Proposals have been put forward by both sides and agreement has been reached on some of the issues. Both sides leave feeling that not only have they been heard but they have contributed constructively to the area and their own unique needs in relation to their problem.

Case example: Two families had lived peaceably for years alongside each other. There was a laurel hedge between the properties. Over the years the hedge thickened to over five feet wide. As the neighbours were getting on in age and the hedge was getting too much for them to control and maintain they agree to remove it and replace it with a wooden fence. The hedge was removed by a contractor but after six months with nothing progressed neighbour A decided to replace the fence himself. Neighbour B immediately demanded that the fence be taken down as it was trespassing on their property as the original line had been moved. Neighbour A maintained that their builder had followed the boundary line.

The two neighbouring families fell out and eventually went to their solicitor’s and the matter ended up in Court. After months in Court Mediation was suggested by the Court. Neighbour B argued that the new fence encroached on their boundary in certain places giving neighbour A extra land, whilst neighbour A maintained this could not be the case as their builder had used the original boundary line, therefore if they had encroached they always had done, and if this was not an issue before why should it be now, and indeed as they had paid for the whole fence and they would not take it down.

During mediation the neighbours agreed to employ a digital mapping surveyor and to build a fence between them based on his findings. They agreed each would pay half the costs involved excluding any legal fees already incurred.

The Mediation session took 4 hours with one adjournment over two separate days and cost the parties €820 (€410 each) This was in contrast to the large legal fees they had already expended and after almost 18 months in court the case still had not been settled. In addition the neighbours got on with living their lives with no major lasting damage to their relationship.

Below are some issues that community mediation has dealt with:

• Neighbour disputes
• Noise/nuisance
• Boundary disputes
• Parking disputes
• Landlord/Tenant disputes
• School conflicts – student to student conflicts
• Public safety
• Animal disputes/pets
• Discrimination: older adults, race, sexual orientation

When the mediator is appointed, they will contact each of the participants individually in a pre-mediation session to explain the process and to get an overview of the issues. The mediator will request the parties sign up to a mediation agreement. This explains the mediation process, as well as setting out that all discussions are totally confidential and are treated as without prejudice and are in a genuine attempt to settle the dispute. This means that anything discussed during the mediation cannot then be used as evidence in any future legal proceedings.

The mediation joint session usually takes place off-site at a neutral venue and with the mediator and all the parties present. A virtual service is also offered if parties cannot attend for healthcare or other reasons if this is suitable to the dispute itself.

During the mediation a separate room can be made available to allow the participants an opportunity to talk privately with the mediator, themselves, or their legal representatives. All information given to the mediator during the mediation’s separate discussions will be kept confidential, unless express permission is given to offer it in the interest of progress.

The mediator often goes back and forth between the parties to seek an agreement between both sides before bringing both parties back together.

In disputes involving public bodies, mediation offers particularly valuable advantages. It can save money and other scarce public resources, protect from adverse publicity or damaging precedent, and avoid damaging long-term relations between the public sector and stakeholders. A further important benefit is its flexibility, which allows settlement terms to be tailored to suit the complex sensitivities of disputes involving public organisations. It is a cheap and quick way of resolving conflict, by contrast to litigation which can drain scarce public and private resources (financial and personal) and which could run for months or years.

It defuses tension, unlike litigation which promotes antagonism and entrenchment where authorities, private parties and communities are often locked into long term relationships from which they can’t escape, the legacy of conflict can be particularly damaging.

It is a good way to manage risk. Not just litigation risk, which is the inherent uncertainty that lies at the heart of all legal proceedings. But also the risks faced by public authorities when balancing competing stakeholder interests (e.g. cost to taxpayer, adverse publicity, protection of the public interest, etc.)  and which is always under public scrutiny

These are the reasons why public bodies, and those involved in disputes with them, are increasingly turning to mediation as their first choice for dispute resolution.

Examples would include:

• Judicial review
• Local government
• Planning
• Environment
• Roads
• Compulsory purchase
• Land in public ownership
• Housing
• Commercial and other private disputes involving public bodies acting in a private capacity
• Licensing
• Nuisance
• Public procurement
• Education
• Health
• Health
• Public sector pensions