Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On the section, this is to do with orders under the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act. I take a particularly strong view on the issue of maintenance. Unfortunately, as we debated earlier, it is women who are left literally holding the baby and taking full responsibility for the rearing of the child and for all the costs attached to that and it is time for a greater emphasis to be placed on the financial responsibilities on men who father children. There is an obligation in that respect. If I am as strong about the genetic and biological tie I have to be equally strong about the responsibilities, and they are often not fulfilled. I am aware efforts are being made, particularly in the area of social welfare payments, to try to recover some of them from the fathers of those children. I am also aware that there are instances where the mother and the father may be living together but because of the way we have structured our housing and social welfare benefits, it is profitable not to disclose that information. It is not good enough that every other taxpayer has to fund a situation when people are in a position to do it themselves. I do not have difficulty if the parents of the child do not have the financial resources to do it. There is a responsibility on the State in those circumstances to give some level of sustainability to the family and to the child but much more needs to be done, and the State must be far more interested in ensuring that this happens. I do not make an apology to anybody for saying that. Responsibility comes with fathering a child, be it a mother or a father, and that should be fulfilled. It is the Minister's duty as Minister, and our duty as legislators, to ensure that is the case.

If the Minister can give effect to that it will mean that the parents will probably take a greater interest and have a greater involvement in the rearing of that child. In terms of the way the system currently operates, the father goes missing intentionally, although in some instances that is not the case, and some fathers are very good. I am aware of cases where the mother and father no longer have a relationship but where they both work together co-operatively to ensure that the child has the involvement of both parents in their lives, and they both make a contribution financially to that child, which is as it should be. I am talking about those who do not fulfil that responsibility. Unfortunately, we have become so politically correct and afraid to say anything that will offend anybody because it might lose us votes that we are allowing very bad policies to evolve. The time has come to cry "Halt" in regard to that. I say that in the interests of the children but also in the interests of the hard-pressed taxpayers who are paying their taxes with great difficulty. Those taxes should be spent wisely and not in an unnecessary way or to subsidise somebody else who should be making their financial contribution.