Single dads ‘have vital role in parenting’

IT’S time to turn the system around so that separated and single fathers can play a greater role in rearing their children, Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan declared yesterday.

Even though separation and divorce has become more commonplace, legislation to protect splintered families is still skewed in favour of mothers, withfathers often excluded from their children’s lives.

Representatives of Unmarried and Separated Fathers of Ireland who attended the EU Conference on the Family in Dublin Castle are now looking to the minister to allow them have an emotional as well as an economic investment in their children.