Speakers
Minister Josepha Madigan, TD
Josepha Madigan was appointed as Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in Nov 2017. Josepha is the sole Fine Gael TD for Dublin Rathdown. She was instrumental in progressing the forthcoming referendum by introducing a Private Member’s Bill.
Following her election to the Dáil for the first time in 2016, Josepha was appointed to the Fine Gael Government Formation negotiation team by former Taoiseach Enda Kenny. Prior to her appointment as Minister, Josepha served on the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee, the Future of Healthcare Committee, and was the Chairperson of the Budgetary Oversight Committee. She was a Fine Gael Councillor for the Stillorgan Ward on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, from May 2014 until her election as a TD.
Josepha practiced as a solicitor for twenty years. She won Family Lawyer of the Year at the Irish Law Awards 2014. Josepha is also an author of a handbook for family lawyers and their clients entitled Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Ireland (Jordan Publishing, 2012).
Gerard Durcan SC
Gerard Durcan is a senior counsel who practices in the area of family law and child care law.
Keith Walsh, Solicitor
Keith Walsh is chair of the Law Society’s Child and Family Law Committee and has practiced in the area of family law for almost 20 years in all courts. His approach is to resolve marital disputes by agreement where possible. He received the AIB Irish Law Award for Family Lawyer of the Year in 2017 and again in 2018. He has published articles in the Gazette, Parchment and other legal journals on family law and recently was invited to appear before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice where he set out proposals for reform of the family law justice system. He is the author of Divorce and Judicial Separation Proceedings in The Circuit Court (Bloomsbury, forthcoming: 2019). He is a trained mediator and collaborative lawyer and has acted for a variety of clients with a focus on self-employed business people, company directors and professionals (or their spouses). www.kwsols.ie
Sonya Dixon, BL
Sonya Dixon BL is a practising Barrister who qualified in 2005. She has a general civil practice, specialising in family law and the area of Pension Adjustment Orders. She co-wrote the book Pensions and Pension Adjustment orders; a Handbook for the Family Law Practitioner (Bloomsbury, 2013). She has a wide and varied practice. She has a keen interest in large scale discovery reviews and represents rape victims in criminal trials.
Tom Murray, Forensic Accountant
Tom Murray FCCA, CPA, PIP, Dip. Forensic Accounting, MII Approved Mediator. Tom is one of Ireland’s leading forensic accountants. A past president of the ACCA Ireland, he specialises in forensic accounting, corporate insolvency and recovery, personal insolvency, and corporate finance. He contributed to ADR in Ireland by Josepha Madigan on the role of the accountant with a particular emphasis on forensic accounting.
Olga Daly, Actuary
Olga Daly is an independent consulting actuary who has specialised for over 10 years in providing pension advice to family lawyers and their clients, from pension valuations and reports, settlement options, pension tax advice, expert witness evidence to all aspects of Pension Adjustment Orders. Olga also provides actuarial advice in relation to personal injury and pension employment cases.
Previously Olga has worked with AdviserPlus, Willis Towers Watson, GE Capital (now Swiss Re) and Bank of Ireland Life. A maths graduate of TCD, she qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries (FIA) in 1998. She is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries in Ireland (FSAI) and an associate member of the Family Lawyers Association. She is a QFA (Qualified Financial Adviser) member of the LIA; she is also a non-executive director of the LIA.