System reduces fathers to mere providers

ONE can only hope — probably in vain — that the sentiments expressed recently by Dr Martin McAleese, while visiting Barnardos’ ‘Da Project’ in Dublin, are taken on board by the incoming Government.

He said that “to reduce a father to an absence or just a sum of money is to ignore the potential he has as a benign stabilising influence in his child’s life”.

Unfortunately, the massive body of family legislation envisages no role for fathers other than as financial providers for women and children.