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

The issue of liable relatives was raised. These changes will simplify the system for the people involved. It does not negate their responsibility as parents to provide for their children, but it means we will not need to have the liable relatives cases where one parent was receiving full State assistance - the one-parent family payment or whatever - and the State felt obliged to try to get that money back from the other parent. Given that we are paying out €614 million in that type of assistance and we are only pulling back €400,000, it seemed to be a rather futile exercise. It was torturing everybody so we decided it was best to remove it.

It was also mentioned about establishing a child maintenance agency. The Minister for Justice, Deputy McEntee, has announced significant reforms to make the family courts systems more accessible and family friendly. We need to see how those reforms bed in. As part of the reforms, the Department of Justice undertook a review of enforcement of child maintenance orders. The trick here is to enforce these orders. If people have to pay them, they need to just get on with it and pay them. The Minister published a report which contains 26 recommendations, including measures that look at how we can strengthen enforcement of child maintenance payments via attachment orders.I would love to see attachment orders going all the way. It is such a waste of everybody's time going in and out of court trying to get maintenance payments. If there is a good strong attachment order and it is deducted at source, that is the way to go. It does take a bit of work and it is not quite as simple perhaps as it sounds, but I know that the Minister, Deputy McEntee, will progress as quickly as possible these proposals in the 26 recommendations that have been announced.

Senator Wall mentioned about the foster carers getting a State pension. Matters relating to foster caring and the associated payment are the responsibility of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and Tusla. The Government acknowledges the important role carers, including foster carers, play and we are fully committed to supporting them in that role. The current State pension system provides measures, including PRSI credits, homemaking disregards and home caring periods to recognise caring periods of up to 20 years outside of paid employment and the calculation of a payment rate. Foster carers are entitled to the benefits of the homemakers scheme or home caring periods and may be entitled to long-term carer's contributions when they meet the criteria and the 20-year threshold. Officials in the Department have recently met with foster carer representatives and have provided detailed explanations on the State pension system and related contributions and the options open to them.

There was a question about the Irish Sign Language scheme and I know it is not part of this Bill. I was not aware of this until late last week, but my officials today met with representatives from the Citizens Information Board and the Irish deaf community. I have not heard of the outcome of the meeting, it could still be going on, and I have not been talking to these officials, but I will be getting a report on it. I supported them very much in these voucher schemes. I met with them last year, but it is important that when it comes to public money, we have full transparency and accountability. I hope there is a solution here and I am certainly working towards it.