Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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65. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will provide an update on intended reforms to the child maintenance system; when it is expected that required primary legislation will be brought forward; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [59449/22]

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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Will the Minister provide an update on the intended reforms that I understand will be brought forward via legislation, I hope in the new year, in respect of the recommendations made by the child maintenance review group in its recently published report? Can the Minister give us a rough timeline for that legislation? Lone parents have waited a long time. These are really important reforms and we really want to see this legislation move as quickly as possible.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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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.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I too welcome the publication of the report and commend everybody involved in the group. It is a really important piece of work. However, the cost of removing child maintenance payments from the means test will be €10 million, which is small money, considering the budget of the Department of Social Protection. It is so regrettable we needed this group and this report in the first place. It is fair enough to have a report looking at the possibility of establishing an agency, but it should never, ever have been the case that child maintenance, where it is paid, is treated as household income. We did not need a report or anything complex or convoluted to come to that conclusion. At €10 million, it should have been done a long time ago.

I am glad that the "efforts to seek maintenance" requirement is to be removed as it places the obligation on lone parents to seek maintenance through the courts. The Minister herself referred to the additional stress that that causes. If we do not set up an agency or some kind of service, that is stress continued because people will end up in court when they clearly do not want to be there.

A majority view of the group was that the child maintenance service or agency be established. Will the Minister give her opinion on that?

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I know that Deputy Kerrane is passionate about this, and we have had many a good and very constructive discussion on it. Senator Ruane is also passionate about this and has done a lot of work on it also. I met her only recently. In fairness, I have always said I recognise the problem that was there. The Deputy has heard me talk about it before when I have spoken about my time working in a credit union and the issues I saw first-hand there. These are significant reforms we are making, and between us Oireachtas Members and the group itself, this is a case of women leading the way.

On the question of the establishment of a child maintenance agency, the group did not reach a consensus. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has announced significant reforms to make the family courts system more accessible and family-friendly. We need to see how those reforms bed in. As part of the reforms, the Department of Justice will undertake a review of enforcement of child maintenance orders in the first half of 2023, and proposals for reform will look at strengthening attachment orders, which is the secret to all this, and examining the feasibility of introducing guidelines on child maintenance amounts.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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That is welcome. As I said before, I do not believe that courts are the place for this to be sorted out and determined. We need to keep a really close eye on whatever reforms in respect of the courts come in the new year and into 2023 to make sure they improve the situation. It has been a nightmare and, in some cases, an absolute ordeal for a great many lone parents for many years now, and they deserve an awful lot better. The child maintenance review group said we need urgent and radical reform, so it is really important we see that legislation as early as possible in the new year. It is long overdue, and the Minister will have the support of the House, no doubt, in progressing it.

Finally, now that the Minister will be double-jobbing, it will be perfect-----

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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For three weeks.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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Exactly. These are the two Departments that really need to move on this issue.

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I am very mindful of that. I want to move this on. I want to get the changes made as soon as possible, and administrative issues are being dealt with, specifically the liable relatives and the requirement to prove that the maintenance was sought in going to court. I think we can deal with that fairly quickly, but more work has to be done on the legislative requirements and the impact of the Social Welfare Bill in a number of places. We just want to make sure we get it right. That is the most important thing. I am keen we move as quickly as possible in strengthening the attachment orders. The way I see it is that if you are meant to pay a certain amount for the maintenance of your child, just get on with it and stop this nonsense whereby one week you pay, and then you miss a few payments and come back and make another few, and then there are arrears, and then you go to court, and all that. That is a waste of everybody's time. If you are supposed to pay it, just pay it. That will be the secret of the success here if we can manage to get an attachment order that makes it stick such that payments have to be made and are automatically deducted. I will be working on that in the coming weeks.