Republic of Ireland Law
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1. Dear Dave, the first thing you need to realise is that divorce proceedings are not the same as child maintenance proceedings and there are different rules applying here. So, the fact you have initiated divorce proceedings in the UK won't prevent an Irish court making an order for child maintenance against you in Ireland, particularly if you don't turn up. Child maintenance is not part of normal divorce proceedings, although on occasions it is. So, my advice to you is to turn up and defend the child maintenance proceedings in Ireland or else you will have the UK Child Support Agency after you for the money you owe in child maintenance under the Irish proceedings for child maintenance.
2. You also need to realise that the solicitor for your wife is perfectly correct in writing to the English court and stating that child maintenance proceedings are elsewhere. Additionally, this solicitor is allowed to put the best argument forward for her client. So, there is nothing untoward (and certainly not fraud) in her challenging the jurisdiction of the English courts to grant a divorce. You will simply have to turn up at the divorce proceedings and put your argument that the divorce should properly take place in England. This will depend on where you are ordinarily resident for this is the test for getting a valid divorce in any state in the EU.
3. I would also advise you to get yourself some legal representation as issues surrounding jurisdiction are quite technical. Additionally, you need to realise that judges in both Ireland and England manifest a latent hostility (sometimes patent hostility) to lay litigants as they are ex lawyers themselves and prefer dealing with lawyers in court. Additionally, I would also suggest you would get a more objective view of how things stand if you got some independent legal advice as currently, your approach to the issues is not correct. You run the risk of getting outmanouvered in court by your wife's solicitor.
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5. If the solicitor said that the matter had been in another court, then it is playing with words about the true situation. However, I would advise you to still defend child maintenance proceedings in an Irish court as strictly speaking divorce is a different matter to issues of child support.