Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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69. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection when she will publish her response to the recommendations of the child maintenance review group; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24489/22]

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I want to ask the Minister about the report that has, I hope, been finalised by the child maintenance review group. I understand she was to receive that report at Easter. Will she outline when she will publish it?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. Under family law, parents and certain categories of guardians or those acting in the place of parents are obliged to maintain their children. In cases where the family unit has broken down, these obligations continue to apply. Child maintenance arrangements can be agreed directly between the parties themselves, with the assistance of their solicitors, private mediators or supports such as the family mediation service and the Legal Aid Board or, ultimately, through the courts.

In line with the programme for Government commitment, the Government established a child maintenance review group to examine certain issues in regard to child maintenance in Ireland. The group was chaired by a former Circuit Court judge, Judge Catherine Murphy, and included legal, policy and academic professionals as well as officials from my Department and the Department of Justice. The group's terms of reference were to consider and make recommendations on the current treatment of child maintenance payments in my Department, the current provisions regarding liable relatives managed by my Department and the establishment of a child maintenance agency in Ireland. As part of its work, the group conducted an extensive public consultation process and examined the international position.

I am pleased to advise that the group has completed its work and its report was submitted to me on 22 April. I thank the chair and the group members for their detailed consideration of these important issues. I am currently giving the report the careful consideration that such an important and complex issue deserves. Given that the report relates to a broad range of issues that are beyond the scope of the social welfare system, I am also consulting Government colleagues. Once the report has been fully considered, my intention is to bring it to Government, at which time a decision regarding its publication date will be made.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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This report has been long-awaited by many Members of the House, who had asked for many years for child maintenance to be examined. The establishment of this review group was very welcome, and I am glad it has reported and that the report is with the Minister. With regard to bringing the report to Cabinet when the Minister has gone through it, and I appreciate that she will have to engage with the Department of Justice and so forth because it is not just a social protection issue but involves a number of Departments, does she envisage bringing proposals to the Cabinet on the back of what is outlined in the report? As I presume there are a number of recommendations, how does she foresee going about that? Organisations such as Single Parents Acting for Rights of Kids, SPARK, and One Family have asked for a long time for this type of work to be done. There are massive issues and complications for lone parent families when it comes to child maintenance. It can put a lot of lone parents in a really difficult situation, so we must get this right. Will the Minister outline the process after she brings it to the Cabinet?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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In fairness, I am aware that the Deputy has a strong interest in this matter and she has raised it with me a number of times in the House. I have the report now. It runs to a couple of hundred pages. The group and the chair, Judge Catherine Murphy, took approximately 18 months to examine this. They asked for a time extension and we gave it to them. It is clear from the report that they looked at all the various issues, and there are many issues both in the social protection area and in the Department of Justice. It gave those issues very detailed consideration. Having received the report, it is only right that I take a few weeks to consider the recommendations carefully. I want to consult with my Cabinet colleagues as well, particularly the Minister for Justice, because there were officials from the Department of Justice in the group as well as officials from my Department.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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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.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I intend to bring a memorandum to the Government with the full report and our proposed response. I can assure the Deputy that this report is not going to sit on a shelf anywhere in the Department of Social Protection. I am coming to this with an open mind, as I have said previously. My priority in all this is the mothers and the children. The Deputy and I have discussed this on a number of occasions. I want to move it along. It is my intention to get this to the Cabinet before the summer recess, and the report and the Government's response will be published in full at that stage. It is important that we move it along, but it is a complex and important issue so I do not want to rush it either. I want to give it careful consideration along with my Cabinet colleagues. As I said, I will not be putting it away on a shelf or anything like that. I will act on it.