Parental Equality

New law will target parents who fail to pay maintenance
20 June 2010 By Ian Kehoe and John Burke -- Sunday Business Post

Thousands of absent parents who are avoiding paying their child maintenance obligations are to be targeted in new legislation.

The government is to fast track the legislation governing maintenance payments, as it has come up against difficulties in its bid to crack down on those who are refusing to make the payments.

The Department of Justice and the Attorney General are currently working on new proposals which will impose tough sanctions on any individual who seeks to avoid paying maintenance.

The new laws will be introduced in the coming months through the Civil Law Bill.

The authorities have encountered significant difficulties forcing thousands of ‘liable parents’ to pay maintenance costs for their children arising from recent court rulings.

The government’s maintenance recovery unit is expecting to deal with 16,000 cases of this nature this year, the overwhelming majority of which involve cases where fathers are not making the required payment.

Although non-payment of a maintenance order is an offence, the state has encountered difficulty with imposing harsh penalties, such as prison sentences, where maintenance orders are not complied with.

In addition, difficulties have arisen in a large number of cases as a result of a landmark High Court case last year, which further restricted the state’s ability legally to enforce maintenance costs.

Under the state’s Liability to Maintain a Family Scheme, the government is mandated to pursue absent parents for some or all of the state’s welfare payments for the child’s care.

The payments include one parent family allowance, lone parent’s allowance, deserted wives’ payment and supplementary welfare allowance.

Separately, parents may agree that one party should pay maintenance to the other.

They can have that agreement sanctioned formally in court. Agreed maintenance payments vary between €5 and €500 per week. Average maintenance contributions of €65 per week are paid to spouses caring for a child.

The state pays a further €1 billion a year in lone parent payments and rent allowance to single parents. The overwhelming majority of these are women.


parentalequality.ie	09/09/2010

New law will target parents who fail to pay maintenance - Sunday Business Post 20th June 2010