Ms Louise Bayliss:

Getting back to Deputy Pringle's question about the philosophy of this, one of the things I find repugnant is that the liable relatives unit can issue a determination order stating that a parent needs to pay Ms X whatever amount of money it is, but that letter also gives the parent the option to pay the Department €60, to use a round figure as an example, and that comes completely out of the contribution the State makes to social welfare, so the child and the parent get no benefit. Otherwise, the order states, "You can pay the parent and we will take half of it." Why on earth do we give parents the option to penalise their children? Why are we giving parents that patriarchal approach that a man or a woman - whoever the liable relative is - can decide? Why are we giving them the option to decide they do not want their children to see the benefit? The parents themselves are not benefiting from that - they still have to pay the determination order - but we are letting them say to the Department, "You can take all the money and make sure my child does not see it." That is repugnant and it says something about how we treat children. It should be very easy to change the legislation. In a modern society it is outrageous that we give parents the option not to pay.