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

I propose to take Questions Nos. 32 to 34, inclusive, together.

I welcome some of the people present in the Visitors Gallery. It is nice to see them again.

I will provide a little background before informing the House of developments in the past week. The Family Law Acts, which are under the remit of the Department of Justice and Equality, place a legal obligation on parents to maintain and mind their children. This is a civil law matter. In cases where the family unit has broken down, these obligations continue to apply to the mother and father. Relevant maintenance payments can be arranged either through family mediation, the Legal Aid Board or the courts, all of which are under the aegis of the Department of Justice and Equality.

It is a condition of the one-parent family payment and jobseeker's transitional payment schemes that lone parents must make efforts to seek maintenance from the other parent, for example, evidence of a private maintenance arrangement or court proceedings, a court summons or a mediation process. The condition to make efforts to seek maintenance is regarded as having been satisfied once appropriate efforts are made, even if they do not result in a maintenance payment being made.

My Department takes the issue of domestic violence very seriously. We are in the middle of Women's Aid's "16 Days" campaign which I fully support every year. I also recognise that the maintenance recovery unit does a worthwhile job in assisting people where its assistance is required. The guidelines in place in my Department with regard to seeking maintenance are clear in respect of circumstances involving domestic abuse or violence. Claims should be processed without delay to the individual who presents and without the lone parent who has the child ever having to contact the former partner.

Historically, for reasons of data protection, when a person presented to a local social welfare office indicating that he or she was in a difficult or vulnerable position, a flag was not placed on his or her electronic record because the Department did not want him or her to be known for that particular flag. In the past week, a case was brought to my attention by a very brave young woman. Last Friday, I met the young woman in question and her beautiful little boy and we had a long conversation about what had happened to her in order that I could learn about what broke down in the delivery of the Department's services. We have learned a couple of things, the first of which is that there is a disconnect between local offices and the maintenance recovery section caused by the lack of a flag on the electronic record. My information technology staff and I have a window at the beginning of December to change the position. Once this has been done, it will be possible to tick a box indicating that a letter should not be sent out. No reason or explanation will be given for flagging the person's record. However, when the maintenance recovery section receives the file the ticked box will indicate that a letter will not be required.

I also had the privilege of meeting representatives of Women's Aid in the Department yesterday. I rang the organisation last week requesting a meeting and we had the launch of the "16 Days" campaign on Friday. We gave Women's Aid copies of all the letters and correspondence the Department sends to lone parents, with a view to having these documents adapted and changed through the lens of someone who is in a vulnerable position and to ensure that no one, even through human error, will receive a letter that causes pain or distress, such as occurred last week. Women's Aid agreed to come back to me within a week with suggestions on the wording of the correspondence. We also agreed that Women's Aid will develop an accredited training course for the Department to be delivered to all front-line staff who may deal with a person who is in a vulnerable or precarious position. The training course will be delivered by Women's Aid in conjunction with the Department's staff development and training unit. We agreed at our meeting yesterday to set this process in train and it will be completed in the coming weeks.

On the back of yesterday's meeting, the Department also established a working group to recommence work it was doing on maintenance recovery last year. This work was interrupted by the delivery of the Indecon report on the one-parent family payment because the same group of officials was doing the work in both areas. We are now back where we were seven months ago in terms of reflecting on the collection of maintenance payments, the reasons for current practice in this area and how best to move forward with the process, where necessary. I will seek suggestions on this issue in future. Some Deputies and Senators have already contacted me with a view to making an input in the process. I will be grateful to receive helpful submissions on the issue.

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