Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 36:

"In page 36, to delete lines 10 to 18."

Amendment No. 36 deals with the issue of the cohabitation rule put forward by the Minister, whereby a couple has to have been cohabiting for not less than 12 consecutive months, including a period after the birth of the child of not less than three consecutive months. One of the key criticisms of the Bill that is quite widespread is the fact that it does not give automatic guardianship to the father at the time of birth. If there are any reasons someone should not be given automatic guardianship, one assumes they can be dealt with through the courts process.

When an unmarried father registers his name on a birth certificate, he assumes he will be entitled to guardianship on the basis of having his name acknowledged on the birth certificate, but that is not the case. We want to remove the conditionality in this Bill and ensure that a father who has stepped up to the plate is entitled to automatic guardianship.

We talk about teenage pregnancies and young men accepting responsibility as a father and all that comes with it. Maybe the parents do not live together and are separated from the get-go but the father pays maintenance and helps with the upbringing of the child. That is not possible in these circumstances because of the proposed legislation. There is also the issue of fathers who have to work abroad, which is a big issue in Ireland today, and who cannot physically be there. If the couple are not married they cannot comply with the criteria. I ask the Minister to accept the amendment. I ask that we work between now and Report Stage on trying to ensure there is automatic guardianship for the father, and, failing this, that the father is informed from the get-go that having his name on the birth certificate does not entitle him to automatic guardianship, and that he should seek to make a statutory declaration. I will deal later with the issue of a central register for these declarations. My own hope and that of my party is that there would be automatic guardianship. Of course, if the father was not fit to be guardian, that could be dealt with through a court case. We need full equality in parenting. The purpose of this legislation is that it reflects the diverse nature of modern families in Ireland. It also reflects the reality that about one third of children are born to unmarried mothers. If all fathers were to step up to the plate, one third of them would not be given automatic guardianship.

So much more needs to be done in respect of the wider issue of fathers' rights in terms of family law and our courts system, which has families stuck in waiting rooms with other civil cases. There are long queues, which causes distress. It would be a good start if we were to make a clear statement that the mother and father, if they are not married, have equal guardianship rights from the get-go.