Call to set up child maintenance agency to help families avoid court

Committee recommended a system for separating child maintenance from other maintenance payments be facilitated in the new laws, and that indirect payments made towards housing be excluded from any assessment of means.

A statutory child maintenance agency should be established by Government as a “first step” before matters progress to the courts, an Oireachtas committee has recommended.

A new report from the Joint Committee on Social Protection has made a number of recommendations to Government on its proposed new law that would exclude child maintenance payments from social welfare means tests.

These measures are expected to benefit 16,000 lone parents at an estimated cost of €10m.

“It also seeks to ensure that lone parents will no longer need to make efforts to seek maintenance to access social welfare payments — this has delayed receipt of social assistance support and caused hardship for many families in the past,” committee chair Denis Naughten said.

The committee said it agreed with the National One Parent Family Alliance when it came to the establishment of an agency that would act before families go to court in the event of a relationship breakdown or other matters.

Its report said: “While the courts should always exist as an option for highly contested cases, the approach that is being recommended and that the Government is arriving at will create situations in which what could have been amicable, ends up being relatively contested because it is brought into the legal sphere.” 

In respect of the statutory agency, the department said that, in its experience over the years, it would not be an effective way of getting money flowing from one parent to another.

Maintenance payments

The committee also made recommendations regarding the assessment of maintenance payments.

“[We] welcome the idea that child-dependant money will not be assessed but some very comprehensive way is needed of making sure this differentiation between what goes to the parent and what goes to the child is made,” it said.

“[We] feel that the more people parenting alone are facilitated in getting above the poverty threshold, the more we are investing in their children and their future, and the more we are alleviating poverty in two generations.” 

It said a system for separating child maintenance from other maintenance payments be facilitated in the new laws, and that indirect payments made towards housing be excluded from any assessment of means.

The committee concluded that “overly prescriptive” means testing be removed in other areas of social protection moving forward.