Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I know. It was a few years ago but it will not happen again. I welcome the legislation. Contrary to what Members opposite have said. this is not the first time we have visited this type of situation, as the Minister and the Ceann Comhairle well know. We remedied this particular problem many years ago to a certain extent when the courts made a decision in situations where there was a separation and people went their separate ways. In some cases, it was acrimonious and partners who were in the position of providing maintenance to their family as ordered by the courts did not do so and made themselves artificially unemployed so they would not have to do so.

They left the children and the mothers in a desperate state. On top of this, there were many situations where there was colossal home abuse, with physical and mental abuse that went on and on to such an extent that the mother and the children were afraid to ask for their rights or to look for them because of the consequence to them as a result. This is still going on and we all deal with these types of cases. This week I have already dealt with a couple of such cases. The abuse is of such a threatening nature that the children or mother will do anything to avoid it. Occasionally there is a situation where one person will fight back and try to assert their rights, and rightly so.

I fought this when I was in the Department and we changed it to a great extent but it drifted back in again in the aftermath of the financial crash. We have to be alert all of the time to watch all of the benefits that were fought for over the years by all of us. It is as if someone with a rope is drawing them back again. We look around and we do not know they have gone. This happens. I was dealing with a case the other day where appalling physical and mental abuse has been meted out to the unfortunate mother and children. It should not be happening. The result of it is visible when looking at the family. It is breaking them down mentally and physically to an appalling extent.

When we combated it previously we found it was possible to do so on a one-to-one basis. Deciding officers in all Departments need to be told about this but particularly in this Department. Where a mother finds herself vulnerable with nothing to pay the bills and the offending partner knows this is the situation, she is on a hiding to nothing. It is appalling what happens. Even this year, we have such situations. Somebody was told they would have money coming from the child benefit the following week. This is what a deciding officer said to someone. I am bowled over by that. The fact of the matter is that she and the children are entitled to that as well.

I remember an issue regarding an official in Kildare County Council once upon a time, and the Ceann Comhairle knows of this too. A national wage agreement gave council housing tenants an increase of a fiver. Because of the differential rent, the system took back the fiver even though it had nothing to do with it at all and it was not entitled to do so. Only a proportion of the fiver with regard to the total income was entitled to be taken back.

The point is that we must do a lot more in this area. I will not go into the most recent issue I have been dealing with, whereby women who are mothers of children, sometimes with large families of children, are subject to appalling treatment by the system. It is not the social system in this case but the family law system. We need to examine these situations and ask ourselves how long does this have to go on. We must remember that under the Constitution, everyone has rights of one kind or another and to some extent or another. If we allow a situation to drift we will allow for a situation that will be highly embarrassing in the future.

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