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

I welcome that this report has been published and I acknowledge the hard work of everyone who took part in that work. It will be extremely important for the future. We have put forward proposals on many occasions for a statutory child maintenance service. That is what we would like to have, and to see it taken off the shoulders of lone parents who end up having to go to court in some cases where maintenance is ordered by a judge, but it is not necessarily paid, and then it is back on the lone parent to go back to court again. The whim of the judge of the day is not the environment to determine child maintenance payments. It should not happen in that way, and it is not fair on lone parents. I hope we will move to a statutory service.

There is one issue the Minister can deal with immediately with or without the findings of the report. Child maintenance should not be treated as household income for means tests for social protection payments. I cannot understand why that is done. It should not be treated as household means but as a payment towards the upbringing of the child or children. I ask the Minister to examine that in time for the next budget.

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