Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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564. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will consider the introduction of more strident penalties for parents who neglect or ignore their maintenance obligations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32034/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The law as it stands provides several mechanisms, including possible penalties, where a person fails to comply with maintenance obligations. The maintenance creditor may, for example, ask the court to order that maintenance be paid by way of attachment of earnings (so the maintenance due is deducted directly from income), or seek to recover sums owing through the courts as a contract debt, or utilise the enforcement mechanisms available under section 8 of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act 1940 (as substituted by section 63 of the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011). In addition, where the failure to pay maintenance is as a result of unwillingness, as distinct from inability, to pay, the court has the option of holding the person in contempt of court.

Where the maintenance debtor and creditor are in different jurisdictions, there are also provisions enabling maintenance recovery. In 2011 Ireland implemented EU Maintenance Regulation 4/2009 which provides procedures for cross-border enforcement of maintenance obligations between EU Member States. Implementation measures are currently being prepared under the Hague Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and other Forms of Family Maintenance to allow for similar procedures for mutual cross-border enforcement of maintenance obligations with non-EU States which have ratified that Convention.

Given the range of enforcement possibilities currently existing or being provided for, and the range of options open to a court where a person liable for maintenance will not pay - up to and including imprisonment - I have no plans at present to introduce still more stringent penalties for failure to pay. Our key aim and focus is not on increasing penalties for failure to pay, but rather to ensure that where maintenance is ordered in respect of a child, that money is paid, in the best interests of the child.