Fathers get a look in just in time for election
Ms Coughlan is on a mission to turn “father’s anger into action” and is delighted all of a sudden to recognise his role in the raising of his children.
What planet has the minister been inhabiting all these years?
Mary Cleary of Amen has pointed out that where the father is missing, especially in the case of boys, a serious lack of discipline exists, leading to crime and lawlessness, fuelled by alcohol and drugs. We taxpayers must then pick up the tab for the product of our increasing fatherless generation.
Prof Patricia Casey of UCD, while conducting a study for Fianna Fail on this issue, reiterated that children, again particularly boys, need a “persistent model of masculinity” in the home and if this does not exist, the burden of direction and influence lies on schools by day and TV by night.
A great deal needs to be done to recognise the father’s equal role in rearing the kids of a broken relationship. The courts are back in the dark ages on this issue, and the responsibility rests with Justice Minister Michael McDowell. Ms Coughlan suggests that Mr McDowell is “amenable” where father’s legal rights are concerned. What does that mean?
We urgently need policies in the areas of law, counselling, financial assistance, property, and medical and emotional support to address this festering social issue.
As Nora Bennis has correctly pointed out, the Government must wake up from its ‘no policy’ attitude to a situation where a lot of separated mothers have to work and fathers are excluded with the result that the children are home alone rearing themselves.
Ms Coughlan’s pre-election rhetoric suggests that following the June elections this issue will be forgotten again until the next general election.
Kevin Jordan,
Village View,
Clashmore,
Co Waterford.
