Louth TD says child maintenance payments system reform needed
Welcomes bill that would mean that payments would no longer be assessed as means for social welfare
Dundalk TD Ruairí Ó Murchú has spoken about the need to reform the child maintenance payments system and has welcomed a government bill that would mean that these payments would no longer be assessed as means for social welfare.
He said: “Many of my colleagues, particularly Deputy Ó Laoghaire, have spoken about the need for a properly operating child maintenance service.
“We would all agree on anything that can be done about placing the onus of legal ramifications or financial burdens on single parents, who definitely have enough work to do in raising their child or children.
“We all know the difficulty of going through the court system. I ask that this issue be expedited. What we need to see is a sensible solution to the overall circumstances we have.
“The idea of doing this is to deal with the issue of poverty. We know that single-parent families are often under severe pressures. This is probably a small enough intervention.
“We all know that a large number of families need intervention earlier than it happens to ensure the right of children to be all that they can be.
“We have to do a far better job at an earlier stage. We definitely could make an intervention that would have an impact by empowering and facilitating families and ensuring we can bridge the gap and can allow people to get onto this route out of poverty.”
And Deputy Ó Murchú also raised the issue of family carers and the need for government to look at how they deal with this issue.
He said: “I accept there are big differences between the supports provided to many family carers. We probably could not put a cost on some of them.
“We need to make sure people do not get caught in these anomalies either. A review of disability is ongoing. This involves another cohort of people who at times have fallen between stools.
“ If we are speaking about dealing with poverty and facilitating all citizens to be what they can be, we need to look at these across the board. This is a good start but there is a lot more to do”.