I move:
That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to make better provision for the maintenance of deserted wives, and for this purpose to amend section 7 of the Enforcement of Court Orders Act, 1940.
Enforcement of Court Orders Bill, 1971: First Stage.
I am opposing this First Stage because the Government will be introducing a Bill which covers the points raised.
Since this Bill is being opposed I call upon Senator Kelly to make a short statement in favour of the Bill.
The purpose of this Bill is to amend the law bearing on the maintenance orders which could be made by the court to deserted wives. These maintenance payments were originally provided for by the Married Women (Maintenance in Case of Desertion) Act, 1886, and in 1886 the weekly payment provided was £2. That was the year before Queen Victoria's Silver Jubilee. It remained £2 per week irrespective of the number of children that a deserted wife might have to support until 1940 when the Enforcement of Court Orders Act by section 7 raised the maximum sum which could be awared by a court against an absconding husband from £2 to £4 and it has remained at £4 ever since, notwithstanding the enormous rise in the cost of living since that date and again irrespective of the number of children who may be dependent for support on this award.
I do not want to mislead the House and I want to make it clear to any Members of the House, or to persons not Members of the House who may be interested, that this provision has nothing whatever to do with the social welfare payments made to deserted wives, nor has it anything to do with alimony or maintenance settlements which may be privately arrived at or decided by a court in consequence of a separation action. This is a provision which, quite apart from what I might call the litigious big time of separation actions, and quite apart from social welfare payments, entitles a deserted wife to recover from her absconding husband, if he is in the jurisdiction, a maximum of £4 a week irrespective of what children may be depending on her support.
The purpose of this Bill introduced by myself and two other Senators in the name of the Fine Gael Party was to remove this ludicrous ceiling of £4 and to relate the maximum amount which could be ordered by a court by way of maintenance against an absconding husband to the husband's earnings. I am condensing our provision but we proposed that where there were no children the maximum amount which could be awarded should be one-half of the husband's earnings and where there were children the maximum should go up to two-thirds of the husband's earnings. That, if you like, is a severe provision but we believe that it is justified.
We do not think it is good enough for the Government to say that the Government are introducing, or will introduce, legislation which will look after this matter. I have taken the trouble to go back through the Parliamentary Questions over the last three years and on no fewer than 12 occasions in the last three years, since this time 1968, Ministers have been asked in the Dáil about deserted wives and on all these occasions the matter has been put on the long finger with the same honeyed words as we have just heard from the Leader of the House.
Since 1968, and for all I know since a long time prior to that since my inquiries did not go back any further, the promise has been made that amending legislation is on the way to raise this ludicrous ceiling, this disgraceful ceiling, which may mean that a wife is dependent on public charity apart from the maximum of £4 which she can get from her absconding husband. Minister after Minister said the legislation was in the pipeline. I know quite well the Government had their own difficulties. There is no reason why that Bill should not have been introduced in this House and there is no reason why our Bill should not be accepted.
The Government have a Civil Service at their disposal; we have not got such a thing at our disposal. We do our best with our own private resources. I am absolutely willing to be told by the Government that this Bill which Senator O'Brien, Senator Butler and myself have put in is in some respect not workable. I am quite willing to be told that it could be improved. I am quite willing to hear that amendments would make it a more satisfactory measure. No opposition would have been forthcoming from us had the Government taken up that attitude. We would have facilitated them and done everything in our power to achieve what the only object in our minds is, namely, to remove this scandal from the Statute Book whereby for the last 31 years, since before certain Members of this House were born, the maximum amount that a deserted wife could recover by a court order from her absconding husband was £4.
I realise, and I am not trying to gloss over this fact, that there are problems in this matter which will not be solved merely by an amendment of the kind which we propose. The main problem is the problem of the husband who absconds across the sea. Our Bill will not solve that problem, and we admit it frankly; but there are husbands in the country who are within reach of the courts, who have perhaps set up establishments separately from their wives but are still within the reach of the courts, and these husbands are getting away with murder. They are not contributing to the social welfare payment to their deserted wives and the maximum that can be extracted from them by a court order is £4 a week. Now Fine Gael is black in the face asking questions about this. No fewer than 12 questions have been put down by the Opposition, most of them from Fine Gael, in the last three years and all we have got is the promise that legislation was on the way.
That seems to us simply not good enough. I want to protest formally against the Government attitude here that it is enough to shoot down this Bill by saying: "We are going to bring in a Bill of our own." What is wrong with this Bill that could not be amended here in this House by the advice of the Minister for Justice's Department? What is wrong with it that could not be healed by that advice if it were forthcoming? I realise that the time of the Minister is limited but there is nothing in the Standing Orders of this House which requires the Minister to be present. He has got a front bench; what else are they there for? He has got men under him. He can say to one of them "come" and he cometh and to another "go" and he goeth. He does not have to be here himself. The Minister for Justice can have his permanent representatives and advisers behind him and his political associates in front of him. He need not be here at all. A Bill of this kind could pass this House in all Stages very quickly and with the minimum of controversy from either side and would right a major social injustice.
We must express the deepest dissatisfaction that the Government are treating our proposal in this way. It seems to me to be absolutely beyond belief that the Government put on the long finger a problem like this which is so simple. It is not a question of taking money out of the public purse. Nobody will have to pay 6p more in rates or in tax if this proposal is carried through. All we are proposing is that the absconding husband should be made liable for more than £4 per week where he is able to bear the load, should be made liable for it in order to support the wife and family that he has deserted, a wife, possibly, who is not able to support herself in sickness or through illness, where she has such a large family that she cannot go out to work. It makes a queer sight of Article 45 of the Constitution, the directive principles of social policy, enshrined in our basic law at the instance of the Fianna Fáil Party. It puts that against a queer background when we now hear, not for the first time but probably for the 21st time, that legislation is in the pipeline to right this wrong. This party object in the strongest way to the Seanad being treated like this, to Private Members' Business being treated like this and to deserted wives being treated like this. I have to protest in the strongest possible language which I regret using to day to Senator Ó Maoláin. I am sorry to speak like this to him. I know that he has lost a dear friend and I unaffectedly sympathise with him and his other political associates in their loss. But I protest very strongly at the way this House is being treated and at the way that Private Members' Business, as represented by this move of our party, is being treated in this regard.
I would like to protest very strongly against the perpetuation of the béal bocht by Senator Kelly. This talk of his about Fine Gael out of their own resources and the Seanad out of their own resources having to dig up facts and figures about this question is all moonshine. I exposed this thing in the Seanad before and I must do it again because I do not see any reason why this lie should be allowed to go around the country unchecked. Fine Gael are in receipt——
The Senator should not use——
(Interruptions.)
Will Senator Ó Maoláin allow the Chair for a moment please? The word "lie" should not be used in respect of the contribution of another Senator.
I withdraw the word "lie".
It is only a drop in the bucket compared with the insults Senator Ó Maoláin flings around this House.
The fact remains that Senator Kelly has stated that the Government have a Civil Service, have officials but Fine Gael have no source from which they can derive any facts, figures or anything else. They have to work night and day to find them. The fact remains that an allowance is made by Parliament to the Fine Gael Party for the very purpose of employing sufficient statisticians to provide them with ammunition to do whatever they can to defeat the Government and there is no reason in the world why Senator Kelly should come with that béal bocht story here now. We oppose that Bill——
It is not a béal bocht.
I did not interrupt the Senator. We oppose this Bill because the Government are looking after the matter and a Bill is in course of introduction in the next couple of weeks. With regard to the provisions which Senator Kelly has so eloquently explained, one thing he did not explain was how does one catch these people. It is quite all right to fix a figure, and to increase the figure, but the Senator, if he knows anything about Dublin and knows anything about absconding husbands, will know——
I have done a couple of these cases myself.
Question put.
The Seanad divided: Tá, 16; Níl, 29.
Tá
- Belton, Richard.
- Boland, John.
- Butler, Pierce.
- Desmond, Eileen.
- Dooge, James C. I.
- Farrelly, Denis.
- Fitzgerald, Jack.
- Horgan, John.
- Kelly, John.
- O'Brien, William.
- O'Higgins, Michael J.
- Prendergast, Micheál A.
- Reynolds, Patrick J.
- Robinson, Mary T. W.
- Russell, G. E.
- West, Timothy Trevor.
Níl
- Ahern, Liam.
- Brennan, John J.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Cranitch, Mícheál C.
- Crinion, Brendan.
- Doyle, John.
- Eachthéirn, Cáit Uí.
- Farrell, Joseph.
- Farrell, Peggy.
- Fitzsimons, Patrick.
- Flanagan, Thomas P.
- Gallanagh, Michael.
- Garrett, Jack.
- Hanafin, Desmond.
- Honan, Dermot P.
- Keegan, Seán.
- Keery, Neville.
- McElgunn, Farrell.
- McGlinchey, Bernard.
- Nash, John J.
- Norton, Patrick.
- O'Callaghan, Cornelius K.
- Ó Maoláin, Tomás.
- O'Sullivan, Terry.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Ryan, Patrick W.
- Ryan, William.
- Sheldon, W. A. W.
- Walsh, Seán.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Kelly and O'Brien; Níl, Senators Brennan and Farrell.
Question declared lost.