Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Any of those things are principally matters of family law. I am no expert in the UK system but at one stage there was a child support agency, a government agency that would, for want of a better term, go after fathers and get the money from them. If we were to make a decision to go down that road it would be a point of family law it would not be something that would be exclusive to social protection.

I am sorry that I cannot find the letter because I did ask for a copy of the letter that is sent out to the other parent in such cases. I have just found it. It says:

As Mr. or Mrs. X is no longer receiving a one-parent family payment, your liability to pay the contribution assessed by the Department has ended. You should be aware however that this does not in any way affect any other maintenance arrangement, private or otherwise, that you may have in place with Mr. or Mrs. X and this should remain in place.

So if anyone has informed Deputy Brady that a letter issues from my Department saying that such fathers no longer have any liability they have misinformed him and he should be sceptical of what they say to him in future.

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