Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I echo the warm welcome offered by Senator Walsh to the Minister of State. I wish him well and congratulate him on his term in office.
I am particularly pleased that Senator Walsh has raised this issue because it led to considerable debate with the Tánaiste on Second Stage. I was not at all happy with one of the exemptions which relates to the proposed amendment to section 22 which states that:

(1D) A mother may furnish to a registrar a statutory declaration made by her and relied on by her to satisfy the registrar that one or more than one of the following compelling reasons exists so as to exempt her from her duty to furnish to the registrar required particulars in so far as they relate to the father of the child:
(a) she does not know the identity of the father of the child;

I can understand circumstances in which that may be the case. However, there seems to be no onus whatsoever on the State to assist in any way in establishing the identity of the father. Senator Walsh referred to DNA. There could be a range of possibilities which the mother could consider. A mother may not be absolutely sure which individual is the father of her child but modern technology and DNA could narrow the search.
Of much more relevance is another exemption where the mother does not know the whereabouts of the father of the child.

This seems suspicious as it leaves open a situation where a child will have no rights or recourse, to paraphrase Senator Walsh's concerns. Had they such rights they could apply them in later life. On page 10, in section 6(1)(c)(iii), the principal Act is amended to include the following paragraph:

if the mother, person, or the child to whom the registration relates, if he or she has attained the age of 18 years and so requests the registrar in writing and produces to him or her a document purporting to be a declaration made under section 35 of the Status of Children Act 1987 or an order made by a court in proceedings referred to in section 45 of that Act and to be certified by or on behalf of the court to be a true copy of the declaration or order that the person is the father of the child.

Correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me that this means when a child has reached 18 years of age he or she may have discovered new information leading to the identity of the father.
I appreciate that many fail-safe issues are built into this section - for example, if the registrar is not satisfied, having considered the statutory declaration furnished by the mother, the mother has a right of appeal to the superintendent registrar. I appreciate the building blocks that have been inserted and give the impression that every effort has been made to ensure the identity of the father is on the birth certificate. I am concerned about the issue of not knowing the whereabouts of the father of the child. Why has the onus been left on the mother? Surely the State, in framing the legislation, has some responsibility to help. After all, legal aid is provided to those who cannot afford legal representation. I am not suggesting this area can be revisited and the Act changed but I am interested in hearing the comments of the Minister of State on this aspect of the exemptions.
General concerns relating to the looseness of the exemptions were raised on Second Stage. This does not relate to mothers as a mother could say she knows who the father is but does not know where he is. Imagine a child became aware that this was the reason his or her mother made a statutory declaration and was exempt from including the father's name on the birth certificate. This could be a matter of some distress to the child, adolescent or adult, given that in such a scenario the mother knows who the father is. The child might know the name of his or her father but it would not be on the birth certificate. This is abstract and I do not expect the Minister of State to do anything about it but I am interested in his observations on the context in which these subsections were framed.