The first official figures on divorce released by the Department of Justice show that 244 divorce applications were made up to June 27th from the time the divorce legislation was implemented last February. A total of 64 divorces were granted in this period.
The majority of the applications - 142 - were made in Dublin, which is not surprising, both because of the concentration of population and the existing high rate of judicial separations in the capital. The second highest number of applications, 22, was in the second largest city, Cork.
However, the rate of applications is not strictly aligned with the size of the catchment area of the circuit court dealing with them. Galway, for example, only had two applications, while Sligo had eight. Clonmel, one of the largest towns in the south-east, did not have any. Nor did Kilkenny, Longford, Monaghan or Roscommon.
There were six High Court applications for divorce, of which two were granted. One of those was granted before the legislation was enacted, when a dying man sought a divorce under the Constitutional amendment so that he could marry his second partner. This was granted 10 days before he died.
The first divorce granted under the legislation was in Castlebar, two weeks after the legislation came into force. Although Mayo recorded one of the highest votes against the amendment, five applications have been made there so far.
The relatively slow rate of applications does not surprise Ms Catherine Forde, a barrister specialising in family law and the chairwoman of the Right to Remarry Campaign during the divorce campaign. "People are wary of reopening matters, especially if it was not a particularly amicable separation, and there are either emotional or financial sores," she said.
She added that in her experience in the past few months, the applications had started to pick up, so she expected them to increase.
It is likely there is a much larger number of applications with solicitors which have not yet reached the application stage. Last February, before the legislation came into force, the Legal Aid Board reported that over 1,000 people had registered with it seeking divorces. That number is sure to have increased since then. There are no figures for the number of requests with private solicitors.
The procedure for making an application can be complicated. The Constitution demands that the court be satisfied that "proper provision" be made for the spouse and dependent children. Following this, the legislation provides for a number of certificates to be drawn up by both spouses detailing their means and the provisions being made for dependent members of the family.
While these documents are not essential if there is no dispute about the provision that has been made, which may have been in place for years following a judicial separation, it is open to the court to seek proof of the provision so that it can make up its own mind. This may be one of the reasons for people feeling a certain reluctance to go back to court again to get a divorce.
In many cases where couples have been separated for a long time they might be satisfied with their financial arrangements and not want to see them re-examined.
It is also likely that some spouses, where they have established new lives and possibly new careers, may regard a demand for full statements of their income and assets as an invasion of their privacy, and prefer to stick with the status quo.
There may also be fears about the cost of seeking a divorce. Although one applicant, the chairwoman of the Divorce Action Group, Ms Mags O'Brien, processed her own application for £15, sums as large as £6,000 have been mentioned. But legal sources say the real cost for an uncontested divorce is only a fraction of this.
However, the Anti-Divorce Campaign feels that the figures vindicate its arguments. "We always said there were no tens of thousands of people waiting for divorces," said a source close to its chairman, Mr Des Hanafin. "We just said that eventually it would lead to a rise in marriage breakdown."