Defaulting parents risk prison over maintenance
The Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill removes family law maintenance debt from civil debt, meaning that anyone breaching existing maintenance conditions without a significant change to their circumstances will be in contempt of court and face possible imprisonment.
It should also ensure that people attend court dates and could apply after even one missed payment.
The threat of jail for failing to meet maintenance requirements previously existed in the statute books, but due to a High Court judgment last year which granted greater protections to debtors, maintenance payments were also affected.
The One Family support group claimed it had received a number of calls from people claiming maintenance had been stopped because the jail deterrent had been removed.
Fine Gael’s Deirdre Clune said four cases were brought to her attention in just one fortnight, and claimed the Government had “missed the boat” as the new bill still only allows for the recovery of back maintenance to a maximum of 26 weeks.
The McCann judgment which led to the relaxation of civil debt penalties took place more than 14 months ago, meaning some lone parents may theoretically never recover months worth of unpaid maintenance.
“This limbo was created last year,” Ms Clune said, claiming that a district court clerk to whom she had spoken described the growing rate of non-payment in the past year as a serious issue.
The Cork South Central TD added that One Parent Family Payment could also have been affected by the reduced rate of maintenance paid in some cases.
One Family policy manager Candy Murphy said her organisation had received calls from people claiming solicitors had advised against the payment of maintenance in some cases until the laws were amended.
“What was really affecting lone parents was that some people were saying it was not being paid because this penalty had been removed.”
Ms Murphy said there was the possibility of a maintenance payment backlog and that it was too early to say if the proposed laws would improve rates of payment.
However, the Department of Justice said the new proposals introduced sanctions for contempt, as opposed to simply non-payment of maintenance, and that the 26-week period was the optimum period for repayment as it was deemed the most anyone could be expected to provide in a lump sum.
Noeline Blackwell, director of the Free Legal Advice Centres said: “When this new legislation is enacted, there will be a clear distinction made between those who cannot pay maintenance and those who actively choose not to.”
Figures from the Courts Service for 2009 show that the Circuit Court made 824 maintenance orders in cases of judicial separation and another 1,284 in cases of divorce.
In the District Court 1,157 orders were granted in cases involving married applicants and a further 2,205 orders were granted in cases where the applicants were unmarried.
The bill also includes amendments to the Domestic Violence Act 1996 to allow someone to apply for a safety order against another person with whom they have a child, even if they never lived together.
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