The "Liability to Maintain Family" provisions in the Social Welfare Acts provide for persons to maintain their dependent spouses and children in accordance with their means. Under the legislation, where a marriage breakdown occurs and a family is dependent on a social welfare payment, the person who is liable to maintain that family must contribute to my Department towards the cost of the family's income support where they have the means to do so.
From 1991 to the end of June 1995, £537,606 was collected in contributions from liable relatives towards the cost of the payment of lone parent's separated spouses allowance, deserted wife's allowance or deserted wife's benefit to their spouses. Liable relatives pay either by way of regular direct contribution to my Department or through family law court orders which are transferred to the Department. Of this amount £163,985 has been received for the first six months of this year.
In addition to these contribution payments, the operation of the maintenance recovery provisions also yielded savings on scheme expenditure of a further £500,000. These related scheme savings arise as a result of the withdrawal of some claims which were actively in payment. For example, some spouses make arrangements to provide adequate support to their families once the Department intervened. Some people are no longer entitled to the benefit or allowance as a result of new information obtained when the case is investigated. Certain other cases of co-habitation or concealed additional means are also discovered in the course of maintenance recovery investigations.
Contrary to what the Deputy may believe, there is no crock of gold to be collected in this area. Of the cases reviewed to date, only about 24 per cent of the spouses with a potential to pay were traceable and working. The remainder were either receiving social welfare payments themselves, 48 per cent, or were untraceable, 28 per cent, for example, living in the UK or the US.
The number of relatives contributing will continue to grow significantly as the Department continues its investigations of the cases on hand. Changes to the liability to maintain provisions in the 1992 Social Welfare Act strengthened the powers of collection and enforcement. Legal proceedings are being considered in a number of cases where the liable relative failed to comply with the legislation.
The new Maintenance Act, 1994, when commenced, will increase the powers available to the Department to trace and seek payment from those liable relatives now resident in other countries.
In relation to unmarried fathers, voluntary groups, such as The Federation of Services for Unmarried Parents and their Children, have raised concerns that the application of the liability to maintain provisions to unmarried parents could lead to fathers not being prepared to identify themselves on birth certificates or to make any effort to support their children.
Partly because of concerns expressed, it was decided to concentrate on putting a workable system in place for those who are married or separated, where a greater maintenance obligation exists, before seeking to recover payments in unmarried parent cases.
A review of the liable relative's provision is being undertaken and in this context a number of issues have emerged. These include: the lack of an appeals mechanism in the legislation; the administrative rules for assessment of ability to pay and the correlation of these to court assessment rules in family law maintenance cases; the effect of the system on existing informal maintenance arrangements, part-time child custody, provision by liable relatives of "maintenance-in-kind", for example, VHI, mortgage repayments, etc. for their spouses; transfer of maintenance from women recipients particularly when they have mortgage commitments and other regular outgoings; the identification and pursuit of putative fathers in unmarried cases; the need to interact more effectively with family mediation services at initial desertion-separation stage to ensure that maintenance issues are resolved then; the tracing of deserting spouses who have disappeared without making any contribution to their families and the provision of resources including staffing of the maintenance recovery unit in the Department.
The system of maintenance determination and recovery is a new one in this country. It is a positive development in ensuring adequate support for separated persons or parents looking after children on their own and also for ensuring that where people have the means to do so, they take responsibility and contribute towards the upkeep of their spouse and-or their children.
I emphasise that this must be implemented with sensitivity in order to avoid the possibility of deepening the divide between parents which may rebound on the welfare of the children of a broken marriage. We must not rush into this like a bull in a china shop and end up in the same position as Britain who did just that.
