Bill ignores unmarried fathers’ rights
In March 2003, Amen made a submission requesting that the Civil Registration Bill make provision for the recording of the appointment of unmarried fathers as guardians along with other life events such birth, marriage, divorce, nullity, etc. To date, the Government has refused to include these in the Civil Registration Bill which is going through its final stages in the Oireachtas.
The appointment of unmarried fathers as guardians is an important life event given the range of rights and duties it encompasses, including the religious, moral, intellectual, physical and social welfare of their children. It can have a vital bearing on issues such as children’s health, custody, passports, child abduction, social welfare entitlements, etc, and should be formally recorded with other important life events.
The process whereby an unmarried father can be appointed as guardian of his child was simplified by the Children Act 1997, which provided that an unmarried father could be appointed guardian with the mother’s agreement if both signed a statutory declaration.
Although that was an improvement, no provision was made for recording these appointments by the Registrar General or any other official body. The only record of the appointment is the signed statutory declaration which can easily be lost. It was a serious oversight on the part of the Government to make provision for such appointments but fail to provide a recording mechanism.
That oversight can now be rectified in the Civil Registration Bill. Failure to do so will compound the previous oversight and undermine the status of unmarried fathers and their children.
During the Seanad debate on Wednesday, February 11, Senator Maurice Cummins asked Social and Family Affairs Minister Mary Coughlan if she intended to address this aspect of the issue of guardianship in the bill or if she intended to address the matter in other legislation? There is no record of any reply from the minister to these questions in the Seanad debate.
Given the importance of guardianship for both parents and children, there can be no doubt that it is a sufficiently important life event to warrant registration in a formal way. There is a responsibility on the minister to amend the bill to provide for such registration or else provide a satisfactory explanation for not doing so.
I ask TDs and senators who are involved in the passage of this legislation to press strongly for this amendment.
Mary T Cleary
National Coordinator
Amen
St Anne’s Resource Centre
Navan
Co Meath
