John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I would certainly be interested in being kept up to date on that. We need to look at this with a view to the long term as well as the short term. Whenever I have raised this issue with the Minister she has said that her hands are tied because the issue crosses into the remit of the Department of Justice and Equality. It is critical that the Departments come together to look at this for the long term. The review that was carried out was the result of an amendment I secured to the Social Welfare Act. That is why we are here. More importantly, that report shows that the liable relatives unit is clearly not working. The Minister has to acknowledge that, and I believe she has. One of the interesting statistics in the report is that, of the 18,078 cases examined by the liable relatives unit in 2018, in just 2,174 cases did liable relatives begin making a contribution. Only €269,949 was collected by the liable relatives unit in 2018. That shows that the system is not working. I costed the proposal I brought forward. For a small amount of money, we would have a statutory child maintenance service. I welcome the Minister's comments but we need to move on this issue because it is causing serious problems.

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