Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, for taking this Topical Issue. The single person child carer credit has been raised with me by a number of fathers since the budget in October. We were waiting to see how it would work out because neither the Department of Finance nor the Revenue Commissioners was exactly sure how it would do so. Since their January wage slips have been processed it is quite obvious to the gentlemen who approached me how it will work out.

Everybody who contacted me completely agrees and understands why the credit needed to be reorganised. In some instances we were paying on the double or triple.

Consequently, I completely concur that the merit behind the credit is to recognise that families which split up have twice the expenses of a normal family that is still living under the same roof. However, the issue of how the credit is being distributed, or rather not being distributed, is a cause of major concern and, in some cases, serious angst on the part of some fathers. The manner in which it has worked out is that the credit of €1,650 is only attributable to the primary carer and the Revenue Commissioners are determining the primary carer is the parent who is receiving children's allowance. In the vast majority of cases, that parent happens to be the mother. With respect - I acknowledge this is a delicate matter - in a great number of such cases, the relationships are not good because, obviously, things did not end well and they ended badly for a reason. The relationship and communications between parents on this credit are not as easy or straightforward as the Revenue Commissioners appear to think. In their view, the mother gets the credit, the mother and the father should be able to speak to each other and work something out with regard to maintenance and thereafter, it is Bob's your uncle. The reality is completely and entirely different. I believe it had been thought the €1,650 could be shared by the Revenue Commissioners on the basis on the proportion of time a parent had the child. I will provide a particular instance in which a gentleman has his children for 40% of the time, while the mother has them for 60% of the time. However, the father must still maintain the three-bedroom house, with heating and so on. Any reduction in these circumstances from the father's perspective would curtail completely and reduce his access to his children, which is obviously not a runner from his perspective. Moreover, it definitely is not a runner from a State policy perspective. Therefore, I ask the Minister to give serious consideration to allowing the Revenue Commissioners to redistribute and share the allowance because this is not possible at present. It either must go to the primary carer or the primary carer who, in most cases, will be the mother must give up the allowance and allow the father to have it. In practice, that is not happening.

This will have two effects. First, it can reduce the father's income and, therefore, have a genuine impact on his access to his children. He may not be able to afford the travel expenses to and from his children or be able to maintain the accommodation he needs to have access to the children. Second, given that mothers, in many cases, do not earn the €16,000 needed to avail of the entire €1,650 credit, they will suffer because the father will be obliged to incur expenses to bring the case back to the court to have the maintenance reduced to reflect his reduced salary and, in such a case, the mother will experience a reduction in maintenance payments from the father. Therefore, I ask for greater thought and consideration to be given to the distribution of this credit. In particular, I ask this given that families will incur almost equal costs when they attempt to maintain two homes to be able to maintain access to the children from the perspective of both the mother and the father.

I merely seek fairness and equality, not to make a moot point; the letters and correspondence I have received have been extremely emotional. A number of fathers who have spoken to me believe the Government is discriminating against them completely. In essence, based on the manner in which the credit is being distributed, I would be obliged to agree with them. I sincerely ask the Government to give further thought to this issue and allow distribution of the credit.

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