Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations. I am sorry that missed the first two or three minutes of the meeting. There was a vote in the Seanad.

My questions will be directed to Ms Bayliss from SPARK, Ms Smith and the Children’s Rights Alliance. First, I would like to pick up on the point relating to child maintenance. My office has been drafting child maintenance legislation for four or five years now. It will be taken on by the women's caucus and will hopefully be tabled early in the new year. In that context, could the witnesses speak a bit about how a guaranteed State payment of child maintenance would make a difference in addressing child poverty and act as an anti-child poverty tool?

My second question is to Ms Bayliss. Has she, through SPARK, encountered instances involving women where the non-resident parent either ended up in prison or deceased? Obviously, there are no protections in any legislation for unmarried parents. If they were married, there would be a widow’s pension. There is no State support for a child who is left fatherless because of either detention or death.

Could Ms Bayliss also comment some more on part-time study? Obviously, we keep pushing women towards low-paid employment under the one-parent family system. We would be better off supporting and resourcing women to engage with education, whatever type of education it is, whether it is pursued on a part-time basis, at weekends, in the evenings or whatever. However, we do not seem to recognise anything other than full-time higher education when it comes to the likes of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, supports. Could Ms Bayliss comment on how we need to address policy in that area in order that women can be encouraged towards education and can eventually access jobs that are not low paid? The latter would increase their chances of removing themselves out of poverty. As we all know, being in a job does not mean that a person is not living in poverty. Could Ms Bayliss speak about this matter, please?