Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. I do not propose to accept this amendment because I am already addressing the two issues she is requesting a report on.

As the Senator is aware, the report of the child maintenance review group was published on 16 November. The Government established that group in 2020 to examine several issues regarding child maintenance in Ireland. The terms of reference were to consider and report on the current treatment within the Department of Social Protection of child maintenance payments, the current provisions relating to the liable relatives regarding child maintenance and the establishment of a State child maintenance agency. 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. This measure will mean that many parents currently on reduced rates of payment will see their payment increase. It will also mean some additional lone parents will qualify for a payment, which is important. It is estimated approximately 16,000 lone parents will benefit from this measure at a cost of approximately €10 million per annum. The efforts to seek maintenance requirement will also be removed from one-parent family payment and jobseeker's transitional payment.This change will remove an additional stress for lone parents of having to go back into the court system because that was not easy for many. In addition, the liable relative provision will be discontinued and this means my Department will no longer seek to recoup a portion of claimed costs from the non-resident parent. My Department is working towards early implementation of these recommendations. I have met with Senator Ruane on this because she has done a lot of work in this area. She has completed work on this matter that I hope to be able to use. We had a very good meeting.

Senator Higgins asked why we were not establishing an agency as sought by the lone parent groups. The Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, and myself looked at this in detail and we discussed the matter. There is an awful lot involved in setting up an agency. There is huge expense, it has to be staffed, and it is not something that can be done willy-nilly. There was not a strong consensus among the child maintenance group whether an agency should be established. Four members were in favour of an agency and three were against it. Before going to all the effort and expense for the taxpayer of setting up a new agency, we have to ask ourselves whether it would deliver better outcomes for families. I know there have been calls for a similar agency to that in place in the UK but according to a recent independent report from the national audit office in the UK, it was found that the number of families without a maintenance arrangement has increased and has almost doubled since the agency was established in the UK. The report also found that unpaid maintenance in the UK is building up at more than £1 million per week and if that trend continues, there will be in excess of £1 billion in unpaid arrears by 2030. On top of that, there are many complaints from single parents about how the service in the UK is working. Instead of an agency, the approach we are taking is to fundamentally reform the family court system and, as part of that, the Department of Justice will look at how we can strengthen enforcement orders on child maintenance. That is the trick here. If people are supposed to pay, they will have to pay and get on with it, instead of this carry-on where people pay a week, miss a few weeks, pay another week and then arrears have accumulated. I worked in the credit union for many years and saw it first-hand. I saw what mainly women had to endure in terms of financial insecurity. This is something I am interested in and, as I said, I had a good discussion with Senator Ruane. The question is how we can find a mechanism where if there is a court order or an agreement made under which people are supposed to pay so much per week, then that is it and they have to get on with it. We need to strengthen the rules around the attachment order and that is the secret to success here because it is the important thing. The bottom line is that a parent has a responsibility towards their child and we just want to make sure that where a maintenance order is in place, the money is received every week. That is the ultimate goal here.