This Bill makes certain legislative changes arising from the proposal that title to children's allowance under the Children's Allowances Acts should be vested in the mother of the child rather than in the father as at present. The actual change in title itself can be effected by amendment of the normal residence rules under the Children's Allowances Acts, but because increases of benefit, pension or assistance in respect of qualified dependent children under the other social welfare schemes are at present also governed by the children's allowances rules, legislation is necessary to ensure that there will be no change in the existing position regarding the payment of these increases. The explanatory memorandum circulated with the Bill will, I hope, help to clarify the provisions which are of a rather technical nature and assist Senators in their examination of the Bill. At present, title to children's allowance is vested in the child's father and this has been the position since the scheme commenced in 1944. In most cases—about 85 per cent— the fathers nominate the mothers to receive the allowances but I have received from many quarters representations, including recommendations in the report of the Commission on the Status of Women, that the mothers should have title to this allowance in their own right. This is the position in many other countries, and I am sure that there are few in this country nowadays who would not agree it is high time that we too should adopt this more enlightened approach.
The matter is governed by the normal residence rules made under the Children's Allowances Acts which set out the person with whom a child is to be regarded as normally resident, and accordingly with whom title to the children's allowance rests. Amended rules will be made to provide that a child shall be regarded as being normally resident with his mother in the first instance and accordingly title to the allowance will in future be vested in her. The existing rules, however, while specifically made for the purpose of children's allowances have also over the years been applied by statute for the purpose of determining the normal residence of qualified children under the other social insurance and assistance schemes.
When the children's allowances rules are amended it will, at the same time, be necessary to ensure that the legal position regarding the payment of increases of benefit, pension or assistance in respect of such children, where the beneficiary would usually be the father rather than the mother, will not be altered in consequence. Otherwise the increases in respect of children could not be paid to the father. What is proposed, therefore, is that the amended normal residence rules to be made under the Children's Allowances Acts will in future be applied only for the purposes of the children's allowances scheme.
New regulations will be made under powers provided in this Bill for determining the normal residence of children for the purposes of the social insurance schemes. These regulations will, with some minor amendments, follow the lines of the existing normal residence rules, so that the position regarding the payment of increases of benefit in respect of qualified children will remain unchanged. The Bill provides that these regulations when made will also apply in determining the normal residence of children for the purposes of the social assistance schemes other than the children's allowances scheme. As in the case of the benefit schemes, therefore, the existing position in regard to the payment of increases of assistance in respect of children will not be disturbed.
Perhaps it would be appropriate at this point to say that during the Committee Stage of the Bill in Dáil Éireann, Deputy Faulkner asked if the actual vesting of title to the allowance in the mother could not be incorporated in the Bill itself. His point, I think, was that since the Bill, when it becomes law, will have severed the connection between the children's allowances normal residence rules and the other social welfare codes which at present also use these rules in determining entitlement to increases of benefit or assistance for children, it would therefore no longer be necessary for a future Minister for Social Welfare to come before the Oireachtas if he wished to reverse the decision vesting title to children's allowances in the mother and give it back to the father. As I have said, this could be done by amending the normal residence rules made under the Children's Allowances Acts. I accepted that the Deputy seemed to have a valid point and promised to look into the matter before the Bill came to the Seanad with a view to seeing if anything could be done by way of a simple amendment to meet it without delaying the passage of the Bill into law.
Since then I have had the matter fully examined and I find that to bring about this change by way of legislation would, in effect, involve incorporating the proposed new normal residence rules in their entirety into the Bill. These rules, as anyone who has had occasion to study them will appreciate, are, in fact extremely complex, providing, as they must do, for a great variety of domestic and other situations apart from what I might term the typical family one, where a child is living with his own mother and father. The present rules, for instance, run into something like ten articles and a number of pages in the printed version of the text. Their incorporation into the Bill would obviously not be a simple matter and it is doubtful if anything would in fact be gained by it.
The principal thing and this, perhaps, is somethng which the Deputy might have overlooked, is that in making and amending the normal residence rules, the Minister and any future Minister likewise, is bound by the provisions of the Children's Allowances Acts themselves. If I may quote from section 5 (3) of the 1946 Act which it the relevant provision in this instance:
Rules prescribed under subsection (2) of this section shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after they are prescribed and if a resolution is passed by either House of the Oireachtas within the next subsequent twenty-one days on which that House has sat after the rules are laid before it annulling the rules, the rules shall be annulled accordingly but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done under the rules.
In other words, even if a future Minister were foolhardy enough to think of restoring title to the father against the tide of modern thinking on the subject, it would be a simple matter for Deputies or Senators to raise the matter publicly, have it fully debated, and set aside the rules if a majority of either House were in favour of that being done.
I hope I shall be forgiven for dealing with this matter at some length but, as I said, the Deputy who raised it undoubtedly had a point which was worth consideration and Senators and other persons apart from the Deputy concerned might wish to be reassured that what we are now proposing to do cannot be lightly set aside at some future date simply as a result of a ministerial whim.
There are two further provisions in the Bill designed to simplify matters for the beneficiaries so far as existing payments of children's allowances are concerned when the title becomes legally vested in the mother. There are about 300,000 or so mothers who have been nominated by the fathers to receive the allowance and it would clearly be unreasonable to require these mothers to make fresh claims for the allowances in their own right. What the Bill proposes to do is to treat them as having made the original claims, and the allowances can thus continue to be paid to them without interruption.
The second provision deals with those existing claims where the records of the Department show the father as the payee. Under the amended normal residence rules the allowance becomes legally payable to the mother in these cases provided, of course, she is still alive. In many of these cases she could have been dead for some years, or living outside the country altogether. In other cases the mother has been content, for any one of a number of reasons, such as the state of her own health or distance from the nearest post office, to let the father handle the children's allowances and would prefer to allow this situation to continue even when she is the person legally entitled to receive it.
Normally she would arrange this by nominating the father as payee. The Bill provides, however, that unless the mother otherwise elects, the father will be regarded as having been nominated by the mother and the allowance will continue to be paid to him thus avoiding the necessity for such formal nomination in these cases. The mother will, of course, be the person entitled to the allowance and if, by a simple notification to the Department, she elects to receive payment it will be made to her as of right. This will also provide the most effective means of dealing with that minority of cases where the father, for his own reasons, has not taken any steps to nominate the mother as payee even though she would have wished it so, and has continued to handle the allowances himself. In these cases the mother, as the person entitled as of right will now be able to arrange to receive payment of the allowances herself by simply letting the Department know her wishes, without the necessity for what could possibly be embarrassing intervention by the Department in the matter. In the case of future claims, the allowance will automatically be paid to the mother unless she nominates the father or some other person to receive it.
I have much pleasure in recommending this measure to Seanad Éireann for speedy and favourable consideration.
