Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday in my constituency office, and not for the first time, I met a lady who spoke to me about child maintenance payments. As Deputy O'Reilly said, when I explained to her that she would have to the courts or get in contact with her partner again, a look of absolute terror fell over her face. Unfortunately, I have seen that occur many times. It is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I commend Deputy Brady on tabling the motion. The current system for lone parents seeking child maintenance is totally unacceptable.

Forcing lone parents to ask former partners for child maintenance before they can receive social welfare supports puts many people in a terrible situation. It often places them in danger if they have left violent partners. The same occurs when a person is forced to bring a former partner to court to try to get child maintenance. The court process results in an immediate escalation of the situation and often causes hostility between the two partners. Going to court is a very stressful experience and the cost alone can be a barrier to many. Waiting for support to go to court can take ages too. In addition, the reality of facing a former partner in court is something many individuals do not wish to do for many personal and private reasons. This blocks many parents from seeking child maintenance. I have heard people say they would prefer not to go to court and I have met these people and forgo child maintenance even though they are desperately in need of it just to ensure they do not have to face their former partner in court. This is a terrible situation and it has been raised on several occasions in the Dail. We brought people to the audiovisual room three years ago when we were first elected in order that we might discuss it. The matter needs to be addressed as soon as possible.

Should a lone parent eventually get over all the hurdles put in front of him or her, a judge then has no guidelines on how the rate of child maintenance should be set. This affords no certainty to a lone parent and results in varying types of orders for child maintenance. This system is not fit for purpose and needs to be changed urgently. Our motion sets out solutions to do just that.

The Department has a liable relatives unit. This is used to contact the absent parent not to collect maintenance but to get him or her to contribute towards the cost of the one-parent family payment. In simple terms, it results in the recoupment of money for the State but not for the lone parent or their children. However, the Department cannot even manage to do that effectively. From the beginning of 2018 up to August of this year, this unit examined 18,078 cases. In 2,174 of these, a liable relative started making contributions. However, in the majority of cases, 15,904 to be exact, nothing happened. Nothing was done, despite the Department insisting that it has enforcement powers. This is a ridiculous situation. According to data received via reply to a parliamentary question, the Department has submitted just 19 cases to the Chief State Solicitor's office since 2016 for the purposes of obtaining orders directing that the liable relative comply with the determination. This is truly pathetic. The Government is not dealing with this issue.

I am not sure which is worse, that the Department does not see fit to assist and support lone parents in seeking maintenance for their children or that it choose to pursue the non-custodial parent, not to benefit the children involved, but simply to cover its own costs. This system needs to be done away with, and replaced with a proper, robust system that ensures the needs of children are to the fore. Sinn Féin has put forward such a solution. I hope the Government gives proper consideration to our proposals. I told the woman I spoke to yesterday that I would raise this matter in the Dáil today. There are others like her. All of our colleagues have met them and I am sure the Minister of State has met them. This needs to be addressed.

See this speech in context