Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The system for determining and paying child maintenance needs urgent reform. The Sinn Féin motion tabled tonight outlines a pathway and a means towards putting child maintenance payments on a statutory basis. That is something that is supported by several child maintenance advocacy groups. If the Government were to implement the proposals outlined in the motion, we would have in place a system that no longer would lead to anomalies in how child maintenance payments are determined or the ad hoc, unstructured way such payments are currently made.

Last July, One Family, a child maintenance advocacy group, published the results of an online survey it conducted on child maintenance payments. The results of the survey show starkly all that is wrong with the way child maintenance payments currently operate. It is a terrible indictment of the current system that just under 60% of separated primary carers of children said they received any form of maintenance payment. Of the parents who receive payments, 58% of those pursuing child maintenance payments had to resort to court orders, while 42% of primary carers are raising children without a financial contribution from the other parent. Of those receiving a child maintenance payment, approximately three quarters of primary carers said that they receive payments on time, leaving a quarter of primary carers getting their child maintenance payments late.

Advocates for statutory child maintenance are firmly of the view that many parents and children are more often financially worse off under existing arrangements. Additionally, the courts are being inundated with maintenance orders that the courts often cannot enforce. For example, in 2018, the Courts Service received almost 9,000 applications for maintenance orders and more than a quarter of those applications remained unresolved by the end of the court term. The Government is allowing that chaotic and unjust system to continue. It is clear that the system for determining child maintenance needs urgent reform. The break-up of a relationship that involves children is a very distressing and stressful time for all involved. We do not need to make it more stressful for the parents or the children. Our focus must be on the children and the implementation of a system that removes the entire issue from the courts. We need to put in place a system that is fair, balanced, consistent and child focused.

See this speech in context