Divorces have been granted online for the first time in Irish history with three decrees given to people appearing via video link.
Remote hearings have been adopted by the Courts Service since Easter to facilitate social distancing.
Solicitor Keith Walsh was involved in yesterday's cases and says a lot of groundwork was put in place before the proceedings.
"I think part of this is down to the Family Lawyers Association who ran a number of remote trials around Easter. They tested various platforms on 'practice cases' if you like. That was very useful in terms of assisting the courts to see that it could be done."
"They spent a huge amount of time trying to encourage the lawyers to get involved with remote access, to consider it as an alternative. I suppose we don't know how long the Covid-19 [restrictions] will be in place. If it runs successfully it could be continued."
Divorces: Privacy Is Paramount
"There needs to be sufficient safeguards in place to make sure that people giving evidence are on their own, that there's no breach of the in-camera rule which is the rule for family law."
"Justice is generally administered in public however in the case of family law it's administered in private. Sometimes some journalists or academics may be admitted so it's very important that people's privacy is not breached."
