Judges are ‘breaching human rights of fathers’

Irish judges are breaching human rights laws by forcing separated fathers on state benefits to make punishing child-maintenance payments, a parental rights advocacy group has claimed.

A chaotic ‘free-for-all’ in Ireland’s family courts has resulted in many fathers being forced below the poverty line while being denied proper access to their children, according to Eamonn Quinn of the Unmarried and Separated Parents of Ireland.

“The European Court of Human Rights has issued guidelines on what constitutes a minimum standard of living. A separated father on welfare is already at that level, yet an Irish judge will consistently force him to make exorbitant payments to the mother yet rarely, if ever, the other way round where he is the principal carer.