Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter.

I am pleased to have recently published the report of the child maintenance review group, together with my colleague, the Minister, Deputy McEntee. The Government established a child maintenance review group in 2020 to examine a number of issues relating to child maintenance in Ireland and to prepare a report for the Minister for Social Protection on the current treatment of child maintenance payments within the Department of Social Protection; the current provisions relating to the liable relatives regarding child maintenance; and the establishment of a State child maintenance agency. I am delighted that the Government has accepted the group's recommendations on the social welfare system.

As a result, child maintenance payments will be disregarded in the means test for social welfare payments. As we know, lone parents are a particularly vulnerable group. This measure will mean that many parents currently on reduced rates of payment will see their payments increase. It will also mean that some additional lone parents will qualify for a payment. It is estimated that this measure will be of direct benefit to approximately 16,000 lone parents at a cost of approximately €10 million per year.

We will also remove the "efforts to seek maintenance" requirement from the one-parent family payment and jobseeker's transitional payment. This requirement often involves having to go to court. This change will remove an additional stress for lone parents and will help to reduce the burden on our courts system.

In addition, the liable relative provisions will be discontinued. This means that my Department will no longer seek to recoup a portion of claim costs from the non-resident parent. I wish to be very clear that removing these provisions does not replace or supersede the primary responsibility of parents to maintain their children.

These are very significant reforms of the social welfare system which will be of great benefit to lone parents. Introducing these changes will require me to make amendments to both primary and secondary legislation. The reforms will also necessitate changes to some of my Department's systems, application forms and processes. My officials are working on advancing these issues at present to ensure as early an implementation as possible of the reforms.

Once again, I thank the chair of the child maintenance review group, Judge Catherine Murphy, and all the members of the group for their work on these important and complex issues.

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