Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

This is very important legislation and, if passed, it will make an immediate difference to lone parents and their families. The current situation for both income supports which lone parents can receive, the one-parent family payment and jobseeker’s transitional payment, sees lone parents having to prove they have sought maintenance in order to both qualify for and retain that income support. In many cases, for lone parents that can be their only source of weekly income.

In the case of the one-parent family payment, lone parents are helped in some way by the Department of Social Protection’s liable relatives unit, which seeks either a contribution from the non-custodial parent directly towards the Department of Social Protection essentially recouping part of the costs of paying out the one-parent family payment in the first instance, or it would begin to pay maintenance directly to the lone parent. However, the issue arises with the cliff edge when the youngest child turns seven. The lone parent typically then moves onto jobseeker’s transitional payment and is still required to seek maintenance in order to both qualify for jobseeker’s transitional payment and to retain it. At that point, the Department walks away but not before it writes to the non-custodial parent telling them they are no longer liable to make a contribution. This pushes the lone parent into court to seek maintenance.

The way this typically works is that the lone parent will wait for a while to eventually get a court date and will go to court potentially several times. Eventually, once his or her case is heard, a maintenance order can be granted but that does not mean maintenance is actually paid. The lone parent will then go away. The maintenance order is treated as household income and it is taken off other income supports coming into the household, regardless of whether it is paid. In cases where it is not paid, it is back to the lone parent, back to court again, and a bench warrant is typically issued which typically sits on a Garda desk for months or years on end. Even where the maintenance order is granted, it is not always necessarily paid. Time and again, it is back to the lone parent, and the lone parent alone.

This legislation, if passed, would extend the powers of the Department’s liable relatives unit to allow it to seek a contribution from the non-custodial parent beyond the duration of just the one-parent family payment. It would allow that unit to seek a contribution while the lone parent receives the jobseeker’s transitional payment, and this is paid until the youngest child is 14. I am clear in bringing forward this legislation that this is not a silver bullet; it is not a solution to the entire issue, as complex as it is when it comes to lone parent supports and to maintenance in particular. What this legislation would do, if passed, is take the pressure off lone parents in essentially being forced to go to court in order to access their income support and retain it.

We have to remember when we discuss any issue in regard to child maintenance that it is not an easy thing for a lone parent to be asked to go to court in order to retain, in some cases, the only income support they will have. Courts are not an appropriate environment. They are not child-centred, I believe, and they are not the right avenue for seeking child maintenance. They have not worked up to now and they are not going to work because a court is not where this issue should be sorted out.

Census 2016, which is the latest census data we have, shows there are over 218,000 households headed by a lone parent in this State and they make up 25% of family units, as the CSO calls them. Once again, we saw further data published yesterday in the survey on income and living conditions and, once again, they showed that lone-parent families have the highest consistent rate of poverty of all household types, with 21.6% in consistent poverty compared with 0.4% for households that are headed by two parents. They are at a high risk of poverty and they also experience very high levels of deprivation. Again, this is a picture that is painted every time and every year the survey on income and living conditions is published. These levels of poverty and deprivation among lone-parent families are shameful in 2022. We know the payment of child maintenance can play a role in lifting children out of poverty, which has been proven by research time and again.

Of course, there is a wider issue. On two occasions in recent years, we have brought forward the child maintenance service system that we want to see established. It is in place in the North of Ireland and it works quite well. We need to see a statutory child maintenance service established in this State. This would take it out of the lone parent’s hands and take it out of court, and it would allow the Department to step in. In this case, the child maintenance service would step in and calculate the maintenance required to be paid for a lone parent household and it would not only do that, but it would collect that maintenance and ensure it is actually paid in the first instance.

In 2019, Fine Gael abstained on a motion we brought forward calling for the establishment of a child maintenance service. At every single round of priority and oral questions, we raised the need for a child maintenance service to be established and we have repeatedly asked for that over three years at every single round of questions. Eventually, in January 2020, just before the general election was called, the Minister at the time, Senator Regina Doherty, announced that she would establish a child maintenance review group, which was and is welcome. We expect that now, albeit late, it is going to review this and come forward with a report at Easter, which is welcome.

I have read the amendment that is being put forward. It looked familiar and, indeed, it is familiar because it is almost word for word the amendment that was brought forward the last time this Bill was taken forward by Fianna Fáil in this House in 2018. It is again kicking the can down the road. I appreciate the review group is in place and it has to do its job. That is fine but what we could do now, and what the Government could do now, is take the pressure off lone parents and stop forcing them into courtrooms in order to seek maintenance to allow them to keep that little income support they rely on. The reality is that lone-parent families have suffered and I would go so far as to say they have been neglected in Ireland for many years. They have suffered huge levels of poverty and they continue to do so, and the data yesterday prove that point which has been proven time and again.

We need to stop counting maintenance as household means. If child maintenance is paid, then it is a payment towards the rearing of the child and that is how it should be seen. It should not be the seen by the Department of Social Protection as a source of income into the house that reduces other income. That should not happen. That could be stopped now, regardless of what the child maintenance review group will say at Easter. Again, regardless of what the child maintenance review group will say at Easter, we could right now take away that obligation on lone parents to seek maintenance. We should do that because we should not be pushing them into courtrooms in order to seek maintenance and to prove they have done that in order to get an income support from the Department of Social Protection. I am disappointed that the same amendment almost word for word from 2018 has been brought in again all these years later, when lone parents have waited and waited.

I ask that the Government reconsider its position on this Bill. It is a Fianna Fáil Bill from 2018, word for word. I presume that party has not changed its tune in regard to its position on lone-parent families, or I at least hope it has not. I ask that the Government reflect on its position, given the importance of supporting lone-parent families in our State and supporting their children who, day after day, are living in poverty in far too many cases. We have a way to support them. We can do that through the payment of child maintenance. I hope the review group will recommend in a few weeks' time the establishment, at long last, of a statutory child maintenance service that will ensure maintenance is calculated correctly and that it is paid, as it is well-deserved and should be paid. It should not have come to this. I ask that the Government review its position in regard to waiting on the child maintenance review group.

There are steps the Government can take. It could tell lone parents immediately that it will not force them into court to seek maintenance to get income support. I ask the Minister to reflect on that.

See this speech in context