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.