Ireland need no longer be famous for its disputes but for resolving them, writes Joe Behan, an arbitrator who will host Dr Ian Paisley in Dublin this weekend
Imagine being told just two years ago that Dr Ian Paisley would today be Northern Ireland's First Minister, and that he would be visiting Dublin to address a conference on dispute management.
That this is no longer fantasy is eloquent testimony to the fact that resolution is possible in even the most apparently intractable disputes if the right approach is adopted. There is a common assumption made in some quarters that this island is most famous for its historic disputes. But it must also be acknowledged that we have developed a special ability for resolving disputes as well.
Conflicts arise in all aspect of life by virtue of the fact that we are human. The resolution of the disputes arising from these conflicts requires professional intervention.
The institute hosting the conference, at which Paisley is speaking, is an all-Ireland body providing experts in dispute resolution throughout Ireland. Within the institute can be found engineers, architects, lawyers, accountants, quantity surveyors, experts in maritime law and sporting matters.
Some of the most crucial negotiations in Northern Ireland worked out when they were held in private. Privacy helps dispute resolution as it prevents grandstanding and bitter exchanges of words between parties.
The trend recently has been for disputes to be resolved through mediation and conciliation. There are good reasons for this. These processes are quicker, cheaper, allow for privacy and enable parties to quite often maintain working relationships while their dispute is being dealt with.
While in the early 1980s, very few construction contracts contained dispute resolution clauses, today just about every construction contract contains one. So if a dispute does arise, the parties are obliged first to go to conciliation in an attempt to broker a deal and, if that fails, they go to arbitration.
Gone are the days when such disputes routinely ended up in open court with allegations of bad practice and bad faith being bandied about at great length and at great cost, souring professional relationships and running up huge legal costs.
The value of construction projects last year amounted to some € 20 billion and it is believed that at least 3 per cent of those contracts - about € 600 million worth - ended up in dispute. Disputes over these extraordinary sums now get solved in private through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods, rather than in open court.
Arbitration has also spread into other areas. Anyone who buys a holiday from the Irish Travel Agents' Association and the Irish Tour Operators' Federation agrees to go to arbitration in the event of dispute. About 50 such cases are dealt with in this manner by the Irish branch each year; it's a lot better than facing into a trip to the courts. The same applies to the motor trade, where the Society of the Irish Motor Industry has decided to insert a dispute resolution clause favouring a recourse to arbitration in all contracts for the sale of cars. Disputes arise between the National Roads Authority and the Irish Farmers' Association over the value of land being compulsorily purchased for road development. Again these disputes, unless resolved by agreement, end up being dealt with by members of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Irish branch) through an assessment procedure.
As politicians know, dispute resolution comes in various guises. Some disputes are resolved through a collaborative process, others through tougher uncompromising methods. Professional dispute resolution methods include, for example, mediation, a private and structured form of negotiation assisted by a third party that is initially non-binding.
Then there is conciliation, similar to mediation, but the conciliator can propose a solution for the parties to consider if agreement is not reached.
In Northern Ireland adjudication is a common form of dispute resolution in the construction industry. Arbitration is a formal and binding process where the dispute is resolved by the decision of a nominated third party - an arbitrator.
Alternative Dispute Resolution has become the proven method for resolving disputes worldwide and ADR practitioners will converge on Dublin this Saturday and Sunday for what we anticipate to be a historic event when Paisley addresses the conference.
• Joe Behanis chairman of the Irish branch of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators