Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Calleary.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Amendment No. 1 is related to amendment No. 10 and they may be discussed together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Maria McCormack (Sinn Fein)
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I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, between lines 17 and 18, to insert the following: “(3) Before the coming into operation of this Act, the Minister shall publish a report which outlines the following:

(a) the degree of financial dependence that families with divorced or separated parents have on those parents;

(b) an overview of the legal issues with not providing the same level of access to social protection payments for some children’s families based on the marital status of their separated or divorced parents.”.

I acknowledge that Deputy Coppinger tabled this amendment in the Dáil. It was a personal thing for her so I am glad to be able to bring this amendment to the Seanad. All of the amendments we would have liked to bring forward were ruled out of order in the Dáil, so we have focused our attention on this one, which I hope the Minister will consider.

It is baffling why, on the one hand, the Minister would extend rights to one cohort of families and children and, on the other hand, take it away from another group. We know there are only approximately 100 new divorced claimants for this pension each year. The amendment is fairly self-explanatory. It seeks an assessment of the extent to which the Bill will incur hardship on separated and divorced survivors and their children. It will also assess the extent to which the Bill goes against the original judgment and leaves the door open to families who will inevitably challenge the unconstitutionality of the Bill. I again acknowledge John O'Meara and his family for the work they put into getting the Bill to this point.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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Some of my amendments were ruled out of order, which I kind of expected, but this amendment is similar in nature to Sinn Féin's amendment, one that I will be supporting. It relates to a report on the provision of supports to bereaved children. For as long as I have been elected, and prior to that, I have spoken about how single parents are viewed in the country historically. We had a referendum last year in which we debated mothers and Article 14.1, yet we are still talking about the protection of children being based on the relationship of their parents, whether it be divorced, cohabiting or married. What we have seen from the O'Meara case is the explicit reference that children should not be penalised because their parents are not married. Children should not be penalised, regardless of the relationship of their parents in its totality. There are parents who have never maintained a relationship with the other parent of their child, but that does not mean they do not co-parent. They might never have been in a committed relationship. Children from a very brief relationship, for example, a one-night stand or a year-long relationship, do not currently feature in the debate at all. If anything, they are at the most risk of poverty, especially if we look at Ireland's child maintenance system. If a child's father is paying the mother €50 a week in maintenance, it makes a huge difference to someone on social welfare or in a low-skilled manual job. Unfortunately, I have many friends whose children's fathers died in various ways, including suicide. Even though the relationship may not have existed for long enough for it to even be considered as a cohabiting one, the maintenance goes towards ensuring a child does not experience any consistent poverty.You remove the emotional labour of the other parent, regardless of relationship, and now the financial piece is removed as well. Currently, no discussion is happening whether it is on pensions or bereaved partners, wives or husbands on the surviving parent. Why are we not looking at the surviving parent? Why are we not creating some sort of mechanism that the financial support for a child happens because he or she is a bereaved child? He or she is a child who has been left more vulnerable due to the absence of one parent, both emotionally and financially, with regard to what this Bill looks for.

My amendment seeks to o broaden the discussion even more beyond divorce and cohabiting, and placing it firmly back in the conversation of children’s rights and what children need. If a report was to be done on it, we would look at whether it would be means tested, for example. There could be multiple children in two different families with the same father or the same mother, but that does not mean that those children’s needs are any less. We are now creating a way we can include more families, but we are leaving potentially the most vulnerable families behind, which are often those single-parent households where cohabitation never existed and marriage never existed at all.

I hope the Minister considers this. It is not a new lens to look as we have the O’Meara case, the Constitution and Children First legislation. We very much have conversations around Children First, but single mothers and children in single-parent households have not featured much with regard to how we financially protect those families and children.

I knew the other amendments would be ruled out because they would create a cost on the State to include more cohorts. However, we will leave many children behind. There could be a payment until the age of 18, or it could be explored within a report, in the context of this Bill. Unlike a widower’s pension that would exist across a lifetime, it could be something that exists across the financial needs of the child until they are a particular age, rather than it being a payment attached to an individual forever. We need to look at the whole family and make sure we are not compounding situations of poverty for very at-risk families.

I ask the Minister to consider this amendment with some of those frames in mind when we move forward about how we make this legislation be completely linked to and led by children’s needs. The fact is, we are still having a conversation around children’s needs, payments and social welfare schemes based on the relationship of two parents to each other rather than what the individual child needs throughout their lives to be able to flourish and succeed in a hard situation where they have lost one parent. It is important, at least, to not put another burden on them when they are not getting any support from the State just because their parents, through no fault of their own, had no long-term relationship or connection to each other legally in terms of marriage.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an mbeirt Seanadóir as ucht an leasaithe seo. I do not propose to accept the amendments.

As I said during the Dáil debate, it is not appropriate to include commitments to produce reports in primary legislation, particularly legislation that is as complex as the Social Welfare Consolidation Act and this Bill.

With respect to the specific issues, as is clear from the Bill, the intention is for this to become operable on enactment, and it is important for those who have become eligible for the pension for the first time. As a result, it will be impossible to produce the report that is being sought by the Senator’s amendment No. 1 before the Act comes into operation. I know she does not want to delay payment, and I discussed this with Deputy O’Reilly during the Dáil debate. I absolutely understand that is not the intention. Some of the information being sought in amendment No. 1 is unavailable to my Department, or it is very likely not to be publicly available at all. My Department does not hold information on the degree of financial dependence that families with divorced or separated parents have on those parents.My Department has no basis to determine the financial arrangement that exists between divorced or separated parents, or the impact in the case of a death. It would be wrong for me to commit to something in legislation that cannot be produced. My main concern is that it would delay the payment of the pension.

On Senator Ruane's amendment and the specific case, the O'Meara case - I will come to the general point, which I am interested in - the function of the scheme before us and this pension is not to provide support in respect of the bereaved children where there is no partner who is entitled to the payment. It would not be possible for my Department to report on a group that will not come under the payment as their parents would not have been married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting. However, I made a commitment to Deputy O'Reilly in the Dáil that after a year of enactment, we will look at how it is working out. We will look at the impact it is having. It is not our intention to penalise people. The good thing about social welfare is that we have a very big Bill every year and if I think there are changes that needed to be made, I will bring forward changes in the Social Welfare Bill 2027.

On Senator Ruane's general point, we are discussing child poverty and youth targets at the moment. I will ask my own team to engage with the Senator on all of those issues in the context of those targets and of that debate because she has given me some food for thought in a way that has not happened to date. I will ask some of my team to engage with the Senator during August on that. On the specific amendments, I cannot accept them, predominantly because I do not have the ability to accept them, I do not have that information and I really do not want to delay the payment of this pension. However, on child poverty, I will engage with the Senator and we will engage with the social protection, rural and community development committee approximately a year after enactment to assess the impact and to ensure it has not had an overly negative impact.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I thank the Minister. It is also worth noting that in the next term, there will be a piece of legislation that has taken me five or six years to draft because it became so complicated and just kept getting bigger and bigger. It is the child maintenance legislation which would be placed within Revenue rather than an independent agency, which we have seen potentially would not work in terms of which Department would be responsible. We have spent five years developing it and it would actually the place the voluntary mechanism in terms of assessment within Revenue and we have interlinked how that interlinks with the courts, cases currently before the court, enforcement and taken at source, etc.

I would love the opportunity to engage on the child poverty measures because it could nearly be linked to people who went through the Revenue assessment tool as well. There is already a fair assessment of maintenance and you could nearly build on that. If you are part of that system and a parent dies and that money is taken directly from the family, there would already be a State system that has begun to assess. We took the tool from New Zealand and undertook a huge piece of research on the care cost percentage as well as the percentage of raising the child. There is the care cost and then there is the actual monetary cost. Those two are put into a mathematical tool which it is beyond me to fully explain right now. I would need to teach it to myself again every morning if I am going to speak to it.

There are some great measures within that Bill that would also be helpful to the discussion if we were ever to look at a social welfare intervention for those children. There are some mechanisms within that which could also be applied to another piece of social welfare legislation on child poverty. I would very much welcome the opportunity to engage with the officials who are working on that.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Ruane. She got a two for one offer today and got in both issues.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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We have an amendment from Senator Ruane. The Senator has conceded that some of her amendments have been ruled out of order and understands that it is due to a potential charge on the Revenue.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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Yes.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Does the Senator want me to give her a fuller explanation or is she happy?

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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No, it is okay; I fully expected it. I am okay on this occasion.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Amendment No. 3 is also in the name of Senator Ruane. Amendments Nos. 3, 5 and 9 are related and may be discussed together by agreement if that is okay with the Senator.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I move amendment No. 3:

In page 6, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “(b) the date on which the youngest child of shared parentage reaches the age of 18, or the age of 22 where the child is receiving full-time education,”.

I am going to actually withdraw these amendments. They are consequential on the amendments that were ruled out of order, so they do not make sense on their own. I will refrain from speaking to them.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Amendment No. 4 has been ruled out of order.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I move amendment No. 5:

In page 12, between lines 37 and 38, to insert the following: “(b) the date on which the youngest child of shared parentage reaches the age of 18, or the age of 22 where the child is receiving full-time education,”.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 have been ruled out of order.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Amendment No. 8 has been ruled of order.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I move amendment No. 9:

In page 16, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “(b) the date on which the youngest child of shared parentage reaches the age of 18, or the age of 22 where the child is receiving full-time education,”.

Lynn Ruane (Independent)
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I move amendment No. 10:

In page 25, after line 37, to insert the following: “Report on provision of supports to bereaved children

22. The Minister shall, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas regarding the adequacy of supports provided to bereaved children, with particular reference to the children of lone-parent families, where a child’s parents were not married, in a civil partnership, or cohabiting on the date of death of the bereaved parent.”.

I am going to withdraw the amendment based on the Minister's commitment to engage on the topic.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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When is it proposed to take Report Stage?

Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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Now.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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When is it proposed to take Final Stage?

Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)
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Now.

Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Is that agreed? Agreed.

Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I place on the record my support for this Bill. It is important that this House, as a Chamber representing people throughout the country, takes stock of the fact there are now so many people living together as a committed couple in the context of a relationship that is cohabitant, which traditionally might have been a married couple. Society has moved on. It is very important that everybody in this Chamber takes stock of that, reflects on it and incorporates into it the fact that if somebody's partner is bereaved, and, as we saw, a case was taken before the Supreme Court on this, that person is not in the same position as that of a married couple. I certainly support this. It is important that it passes and, hopefully, as is apparent, it looks like it will. Any opportunity for this House to change the law in an area where individuals are ahead of the law is certainly something that is worthwhile.

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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With the Acting Chair's indulgence, I will make a few remarks. I thank the Senators for their consideration both at Second Stage and at the Stages this evening, including Senators Rabbitte, O'Donovan, McCormack and Ruane, whose contributions were really instructive.

As we all know, this legislation will bring a very important change for hundreds of people who are directly affected by the death of a loved one. These are people we know in our own families and people we meet every day. They are our friends and colleagues. It will bring comfort to many thousands of families and couples, who may someday find themselves in that situation, which they may not have envisaged they would be.

This has come about because of the determination of Johnny O'Meara. I pay tribute to him, his three children and, in particular, his partner and their mum Michelle, without whom we would not be here and without whose courage we would not be here. I also pay tribute to Deputy Alan Kelly who joined with them and walked with them on that journey. There are times as public representatives we can feel frustrated at what we may feel is powerlessness around things, but Alan has shown us that we all have power if we use it.

These provisions are being introduced as a consequence of that Supreme Court judgment. The focus being placed on the position of children was a very important, but not definitive, element for it. While there are genuine concerns around financial support for the children of separated people in the aftermath of the death of one parent, there are means to secure support. My Department will provide financial assistance for those with a need.

I thank the Senators and Deputies for their contribution to the debate. I will keep a very close eye on the implementation of this legislation. I will engage with both Senators and Deputies on the specific legislation and its impact. I will also engage with Senator Ruane and her office on the child poverty aspects she raised in her contribution. I thank the Acting Chair, the Seanad Office and, in particular, the officials in my Department who shepherded this legislation from the Supreme Court to this point. It is a matter of great pride that we will now send it to the President for signing.