Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Brady for bringing forward this motion, which is calling on the Government to establish a statutory child maintenance service with enough powers and to link it to Revenue. The current mechanisms available to parents to seek maintenance orders, and their subsequent enforcement, rest with those who are seeking the payment, namely, the single parent in many cases, which places a considerable burden on them.

There is a legal responsibility on parents, whether married or unmarried, to maintain dependent children. As we all know this is not always the case. A recent study by One Family found that while 42% of primary carers are raising children without a financial contribution from the other parent, no support at all from the other parent makes life extremely difficult for the primary carer. According to census 2016, 25% of all families with children are Ione parent families, so one in every four families in Ireland is a single parent family who may be separated, widowed or divorced. That is the reality of the Ireland we live in.

There are more than 350,000 children living in lone parent families, where 86.4% of the parents are female and 13.6% male. As we can see from the statistics, the mother is generally the carer of the family. Some 58%, or three fifths, of parents are resorting to a court order to agree on child maintenance. Establishing a statutory child maintenance agency would ease the financial and emotional burden on lone parents; improve outcomes for Ione parents and their children; and provide financial stability and go some way towards reducing the appalling poverty rates experienced by Ione parent families.

Some couples with children break up and it can be amicable. Maintenance can be sorted voluntarily and this can work well when both parties are reasonable and fair. However, it is difficult to assess informally the correct amount of maintenance that should be paid and when it should increase, whether at different times of financial strains during the year, whether it be Christmas or back to school time.

If the parents cannot agree on maintenance, either party can apply to the courts for a maintenance order. As my colleague said, however, this can prove very difficult, because some women, mothers, are afraid of allowing their partner to know what their address is. When a parent refuses to pay it becomes very messy.

I recently spoke to a mother of two who receives maintenance and she explained how her ex-partner is very difficult to deal with, questions every euro spent on the children and a row results whenever there is an extra request, maybe for swimming lessons in school, sports gear and school trips, at Christmas time, etc. It can be very traumatic for the lone parent, 86% of whom, as we know, are women.

A report published by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in March 2019, entitled Working, Parenting and Struggling, found that lone parents as a group are at risk of poverty in Ireland. Lone parents represent the largest group seeking assistance from the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. It is this society's members' experience that one-parent families have been hit hardest by the recession and the austerity measures that followed and have been unable to take advantage of the recent economic improvements.

Almost 60% of lone parents reported that they could not access childcare services due to cost which is the second highest rate in the EU15 countries, just after Spain. Employment rates are three times higher among Ione parents with third level education but one in five lone parents reported that he or she could not access formal education for financial reasons.

One in every five of lone parents was in consistent poverty in 2017. Two in every five Ione-parent households were at risk of poverty in 2017. These are shocking statistics but I am not surprised. During the last Government Fine Gael and the Labour Party targeted Ione parents and their children by introducing punitive reforms to the one-parent family payment. These reforms had a detrimental effect on Ione parent households. Even though changes has since been made, significant issues remain and the effects of their punitive changes to the one-parent family payment are still being felt.

Fianna Fáil supports the establishment of a statutory child maintenance agency which could create a more transparent and simplified process for lone parents seeking maintenance; help provide more financial stability for Ione-parent households and reduce the high rates of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion experienced by lone parents and their children. That is why I am delighted to support the motion.

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