Time to track down the missing fathers

IT is encouraging to read (May 5) of the increasing quest among unmarried fathers for legal rights towards their children – especially as this surely also represents an increase in the acceptance of responsibilities among such fathers.

According to the statistics you published on March 20 last year, there are some 25,000 births annually in Ireland to unmarried mothers.

Notwithstanding the responsible fathers you refer to, shouldn’t all unmarried fathers, as is now done in the US, be obliged legally to give their name and PPS number on the birth certificate of their child and thereby made bound to contribute regular financial support according to their means?

No one begrudges state payments to abandoned mothers and their children, but surely the much beleaguered Irish taxpayer is entitled to call the rest of unmarried fathers to account?

More importantly still, what of the effect of so much fatherlessness on these children and on society? Never were good fathers so much in demand.

Fr Eamonn McCarthy

Coachford

Co Cork