Marie Moloney (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, to the House and I know he is off to a running start. Over the summer he visited Intreo offices all over the country and came to grips with his brief at the Department of Social and Family Affairs. I never understood why there was previously no Minister of State at that Department, given the workload. I agree with Senator van Turnhout on section 9. I know of many cases where couples registered the name of a child's father as the child's surname but later split up. In such circumstances, if the father leaves, the mother's child will have a different surname from her and any children she has subsequently. Often mothers in such circumstances change the name of the child unofficially to the mother's maiden name. A passport will have the child's official name but schools and GAA clubs may have a different one. This can lead to great confusion and the issue should be clarified so that a child has one surname only, be it the mother's or father's.