The Mediation Act 2017 is short, readable and quietly consequential: it made the mediation conversation compulsory before proceedings, protected what is said in the room, made signed settlements enforceable, and put a costs price on unreasonable refusal. Four walls, holding up the whole structure.
Section 14, and the Agreement That Starts Everything
Section 14 is the provision that routes disputes toward mediation whether or not anyone planned it: before issuing proceedings, a solicitor must advise the client to consider mediation, provide information about mediation services and the advantages of resolving disputes outside court, and swear a statutory declaration confirming it — filed with the originating document, with the court able to adjourn proceedings if it is missing. Read that plainly and it means every litigant in Ireland has had this conversation by law. Then comes the agreement to mediate: the contract governing the process itself, signed by the parties and the mediator before anything begins, addressing how the mediation runs and how it can be terminated, the mediator’s role and obligations, the parties’ right to take legal advice, confidentiality — and fees, agreed in writing with all parties before commencement, which is both the Act’s expectation and the reason no figures appear on this website: a mediation’s shape determines its cost, and quoting before understanding the dispute would be a guess. Most of the trouble that ever arises in a mediation is prevented in this document: who attends, with what authority, what happens to papers afterwards, and what ends the process.
Confidentiality, Enforceability, and the Price of Refusing
Confidentiality is the engine: communications made during mediation, and the notes and records of them, are generally confidential and inadmissible in later proceedings — which is what allows a party to float a figure, concede a point or admit an interest without arming the other side for a hearing. The exceptions are principled and are explained at the outset rather than discovered later: implementing or enforcing a settlement, preventing physical or psychological injury, disclosure required by law, matters touching the mediator’s own conduct. Enforceability answers the question every party asks first: a signed mediation settlement is enforceable as a contract, and where proceedings exist it can be drafted to dispose of them — which is exactly why the drafting is done in the room, while everyone is still present, rather than left to be assembled by correspondence after the energy has drained out of the day. And the costs consequence completes the design: courts may invite parties to consider mediation and adjourn for it, and unreasonable refusal to engage can be weighed when costs are decided. Nobody is forced to settle — but refusing is now a decision with a price, which makes it a decision worth taking deliberately, with reasons capable of being stated. The practical translation of all four walls: walking in costs nothing, walking out costs nothing, and only the signature commits you.
Your Solicitor Raised Mediation - Now What?
Section 14 means they had to. Whether it actually suits your dispute is a different question, and worth ten minutes: send the dispute in ten lines and the names of the parties, and you get a straight answer either way.
Call 01 5827148