Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry. I thought it had been ruled out of order. I move amendment No. 49:

In page 37, between lines 18 and 19, to insert the following:“(2) The Minister shall report to Dáil Éireann 12 months following the enactment of this Act on the impact of the changes to guardianship outlined in this section, and in the drafting of the report to consult with groups and organisations concerned with the welfare and safety of children and women.”.

This amendment ties up some of the issues that arose in the earlier discussion about putting safeguards in place with regard to automatic guardianship. We want the Minister - say, in 12 months - to examine this and consult with groups and organisations concerned with the welfare and safety of children and women about the very important minority of situations in which women experience domestic violence. We mentioned earlier that one in five women experience this. In 2012, 12,000 barring orders were granted. On one day, for example, 217 women and 152 children were accommodated in refuges. From 2000 to 2005, gardaí responded to 15 to 30 incidents of domestic violence a day.

There has been a denial that this is a serious issue for a cohort of women in this country, but it is ludicrous to then say that this is being applied to all men; it is not. It is a cohort of women and their children, and some safeguards should be attached to automatic guardianship.

In terms of the other situations that can arise, some Deputies mentioned examples such as that of a young girl who might become pregnant in a situation in which the father, understandably, cannot live with her. Such fathers should have rights, and I hope that will be the case. However, most lone parents are not young girls. They are women with a number of children whose relationships have broken down or whatever. We all know teenagers or young girls who became pregnant who did not have a meaningful relationship with the father of the child. We would not agree that that father should necessarily have automatic guardianship. Are we saying that teenagers who make a mistake in their lives should be stuck with gobdaws for the rest of their lives who will have control over their passports?

Listening to some Deputies in the House, one would think there are women who are knowingly and deliberately preventing fathers from having constructive, meaningful relationships with their children. The evidence would suggest otherwise. I cannot think of any woman who would prevent somebody having a relationship with their child, or guardianship, if he was playing a positive role. However, 90% of lone parents are women, and two thirds of those lone parents are living in poverty because in many cases they are not getting financial help from the fathers of their children. The Growing Up in Ireland survey completed in 2013 found that 50% of fathers make no financial contribution to the maintenance of their child. While I agree that we want fathers to play a positive role with mothers, there are cases in which men are not stepping up to the plate and are not willing to support their children financially, emotionally or in other ways.

The purpose of my amendment is to include safeguards with respect to guardianship to ensure it is not granted automatically and to provide that organisations such as Women's Aid and other groups who deal with families who are victims of domestic violence will be consulted in 12 months' time to determine whether there has been a negative impact for women and their children arising from the granting of automatic guardianship.

It is ironic that Deputies who trooped in here and voted down a Bill to repeal the eighth amendment to the Constitution, which would have allowed women more control over their own fertility, are now lining up to support fathers' rights without giving any recognition to the fact that women are being left in this position. By the way, I do not agree that women should be left in control of children. There should be a shared arrangement but, unfortunately, we do not live in that type of society. It seems that many women are not living with the fathers of their children, presumably for a reason, and these men can and should apply for custody and for shared parentage. That facility is written into the Bill. My quibble related to the automatic granting of guardianship, which allows men control over matters such as passports and where the woman lives.

A woman who is staying in the women's refuge in Blanchardstown came into my clinic on Monday. She has a good profession but has not been able to work for two years because of her husband's violence and his sexual violence against the children. When we discussed this Bill, that woman was horrified to think that because she lived for a period with the father he would automatically have guardianship of those children and she would then have to go to court to prevent him from having that guardianship. My amendment proposes that safeguards be attached to the granting of guardianship, and I believe everybody should agree with that.

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