Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I appeal to the Minister to reconsider this measure which is ill-thought out and will really hit a big cohort of families. I am afraid the modern family is different from what families used to be. That is just the way it is. This is a discriminatory move against families that do not accord with what some people consider the so-called normal family set up. Relationships break up but that does not mean the father or the mother who is not the primary carer of the children is somehow unlikely to play a full part in the rearing, maintenance and nurturing of their children. I say that from a personal point of view because I am in that situation. I am not the primary carer of my children but I can tell the Minister that I play a full part in their lives. As it happens, I do not claim the credit because I was not aware of it until recently but other people who have spoken to me have told me what a huge hit this will be.

Even some of the amendments trying to improve this measure or minimise the damage the initial proposal would do are also failing to get the point. It is not about the number of days. There are all sorts of circumstances. For example, many people have had to leave this country for work but their kids may have had to stay here with their former partner. They may not have wanted to do that but have to do so. They may be contributing very substantially financially and use every opportunity they can to see their kids and may speak to them on the telephone every night. They may not want to be in this position but they will potentially be hit by a measure like this.

There are all sorts of other scenarios where it is not the number of days that indicate the role the non-primary carer parent might play in a child's upbringing, so it is simply unfair to hit them.

As somebody put it to me, it is giving the State a financial incentive to see relationships break up because the State benefits. If two people are working and together, they both receive the tax credit but if they break up, only one will receive it. That is wrong. The impact of that will come back on the children, as has been said because people will be able to afford less in maintenance payments and that will be picked up at the other end by one-parent family payments and so forth. Ultimately, it will fall back on the children. It is an attack on families and on children in particular. It also represents a failure to recognise that families are different now, that relationships sometimes break down and that is nobody's fault. People should not be punished because their relationship has broken down and their children should definitely not be punished. I ask the Minister to reconsider this and to remove this provision from the Bill.