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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Friday, 24 Jun 1994

Vol. 444 No. 4

Maintenance Bill, 1994: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The Bill is one of a series of important law reform measures promised in the Programme for a Partnership Government and for which I have responsibility as Minister for Equality and Law Reform.

This Bill will enable the State to ratify two international conventions — the Rome and New York Conventions — which will assist claimants in Ireland who wish to recover maintenance from persons living abroad. The Bill will also assist foreign claimants who wish to enforce their entitlements to maintenance in Ireland.

The Family Law Bill, 1994, which is currently before this House, contains new provisions which strengthen the power of the Irish courts to enforce domestic maintenance orders. However, the problem of enforcement is not just a domestic phenomenon; it has an international dimension also. Before turning to the details of this Bill, it may be helpful to give the House some background information on the law concerning enforcement of maintenance orders to date. Under the common law, as originally understood, an order for periodic maintenance payments made in another country could not be recognised or enforced in Ireland. Similarly, Irish maintenance orders could not be enforced abroad unless there was an agreement in place which was based on reciprocity. As a consequence the maintenance creditor was left with two options — either to institute time consuming and expensive legal proceedings in the relevant country or, as was more often the case, to take no action at all.

This position was improved by the Maintenance Orders Act, 1974. That Act enabled the State to enter into an agreement with the United Kingdom for reciprocal recognition and enforcement of maintenance orders. The agreement also provides a system to assist maintenance creditors. There are no fees or lawyers required. This system has worked well, and will remain undisturbed by the provisions of the Bill.

The position in relation to other European Union countries was advanced considerably in 1988 when Ireland ratified the European Union Convention on Jurisdiction of Courts and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters. This convention is generally referred to as the Brussels Convention. It provides a simple and standardised legal basis for reciprocal recognition and enforcement of civil and commercial judgments, including maintenance orders, by the courts of the member states. The procedure for recognition and enforcement of these judgments is set out in the Jurisdiction of Courts and Enforcement of Judgments (European Communities) Act, 1988.

Last year, I initiated the Jurisdiction of Courts and Enforcement of Judgments Act, 1993, to give effect to another convention, the Lugano Convention, which provides for similar arrangements between member states of the European Union and of the European Free Trade Association. The net effect of these two Acts is that Irish maintenance orders can now be recognised and enforced in all European Union and EFTA countries, with the exception of Austria and Iceland who have yet to ratify the Lugano Convention.

However, the difficulty faced by maintenance creditors who wish to avail of the Brussels or Lugano Conventions is that they do not receive any administrative assistance from the State. In other words, while the legal obstacles have been removed the administrative obstacles remain. Effectively, the maintenance creditor is left to his or her own devices, and has to travel to, or engage a lawyer in, the country involved, in order to avail of the simplified enforcement mechanisms provided for in the conventions.

The Rome Convention, which was finalised during the Irish Presidency of the Council of Ministers in 1990, is intended to address this problem as it affects European Union member states. The main feature of the convention is the establishment of central authorities in each member state which, in co-operation with each other, will assist maintenance creditors in having maintenance orders recognised and enforced. The central authorities can deal with both incoming and outgoing applications, help and documentation, ascertain the whereabouts of debtors and ensure that moneys due are paid over.

The Rome Convention does not come fully into force until it has been ratified by all 12 member states, but it can apply between individual member states which have ratified it prior to that date.

The other convention dealt with in this Bill — the New York Convention on the Recovery Abroad of Maintenance — is currently in force in over 40 countries worldwide, including many countries with large Irish populations, such as Australia and New Zealand. This convention is based on a similar network of central authorities, which are referred to in the convention as transmitting and receiving agencies. There are, however, some important differences between it and the Rome Convention.

The assistance given under the New York Convention is broader in scope than under the Rome Convention. There is no requirement under the New York Convention that a claimant must first obtain a maintenance order in his or her own state. The New York Convention obliges central authorities to assist a claimant who wishes to recover maintenance, whether he or she already has a maintenance order. The central authority in the receiving state is free to initiate proceedings for a fresh order or, alternatively, to apply for the recognition and enforcement of an existing foreign order, if there is one. The Rome Convention, however, applies only to the enforcement of maintenance orders already obtained.

I now turn to the details of the Bill. Section 2 states that the legislation will come into force on a date or dates to be fixed by order. This is a standard provision in legislation giving effect to international conventions and is necessary to allow for the different timescales required for ratification of the two conventions.

Section 4 provides for a central authority to perform the functions required of it under the Act and under the Rome and New York Conventions. Pending the appointment of a central authority those functions will be discharged by my Department. A similar situation obtains under the Child Abduction and Enforcement of Custody Orders Act, 1991. The central authority for child abduction has been in operation for almost four years — initially in the Department of Justice and more recently in my Department. In 1993 that central authority dealt with 82 cases involving 144 children who had been removed from the State or to the State. The central authority concept, therefore, is one with which officials in my Department have become familiar and its operation has been very successful. This augurs well for the system now proposed in the Bill.

Part II of the Bill covers the recognition and enforcement of maintenance orders from what are termed "reciprocating jurisdictions". In order to qualify as a reciprocating jurisdiction, a country must be a contracting party to either the Brussels or the Lugano Convention and must operate a central authority system to assist maintenance creditors. All the contracting parties already have a central authority system in place by virtue of the fact that they have ratified the New York Convention or the Rome Convention.

Under our Jurisdiction of Courts and Enforcement of Judgements Acts, 1988 and 1993, there are, as I mentioned, court procedures for recognition and enforcement in the State of judgements made in countries which are parties to the Brussels or Lugano Conventions. Section 7 provides that the central authority may avail of these procedures when it receives an application for enforcement of a maintenance order and may act accordingly on behalf of the foreign maintenance creditor.

The central authority, under this procedure, will send the application to the Master of the High Court who will consider it privately. The Master will make an order for the enforcement of the maintenance order unless it appears from the accompanying documents or from his or her own knowledge that enforcement is prohibited by the Brussels or Lugano Conventions. This procedure is based on analogous provisions of the Maintenance Orders Act, 1974. Once the order has been made enforceable by the Master it will be enforced by the District Court in accordance with section 7 of the 1988 Act unless, in the case of a lump sum order or arrears, it would be more effective to have the order enforced by the High Court.

Sections 9 to 12 amend various provisions of the 1988 and 1993 Acts. The main purpose of these amendments is to allow the District Court to enforce foreign lump sum maintenance orders. This will add to the District Court's existing powers to enforce periodic payment orders and is consistent with a similar extension being made under the Family Law Bill in respect of domestic maintenance orders. The District Court is also being given powers to enforce maintenance orders where the debtor is employed by an Irish based firm but does not in fact reside here. In such cases an attachment of earnings order may be effective.

Before leaving these sections I would like to say a word about authentic instruments and court settlements which are referred to in sections 10 and 11 and elsewhere in the Bill. Authentic instruments are unknown to Irish law. They are instruments which are enforceable in the country where they are drawn up in the same manner as a judgment, but without the need to have recourse to the courts. The instrument must be authenticated by a public authority, normally a notary. Court settlements, known in German and Dutch law, are approved by a court in the course of proceedings, and are enforceable without further formality. They differ from court settlements under Irish law which are not enforceable unless they are embodied in an order of the court.

Applications for recognition and enforcement of these instruments and settlements are made not to the Master of the High Court but to the High Court itself under the Brussels Convention. This procedure will continue. However, the District Court is now being empowered to enforce an instrument or settlement which the High Court has declared enforceable, as far as payment of maintenance is concerned.

Part III of the Bill deals with applications for the recovery of maintenance from "designated jurisdictions", that is, jurisdictions which are contracting parties to the New York Convention. Other jurisdictions may also be declared to be designated jurisdictions by order of the Minister for Foreign Affairs if similar arrangements can be negotiated. I am confident that the provisions of the Bill are sufficiently flexible to enable this to be done.

Section 14 is the key provision of this Part. That section sets out the procedures to be followed by the central authority when it receives an application for the recovery of maintenance on behalf of a claimant from its counterpart in a designated jurisdiction. The application may be accompanied by a maintenance order already obtained by the claimant, if one exists.

European Union and EFTA states — other than Austria and Iceland — will be both reciprocating jurisdictions for the purposes of Part II of the Bill and designated jurisdictions for the purposes of Part III. How this will operate in practice is as follows. Applications for recognition and enforcement in Ireland of maintenance orders which were made in those countries will be dealt with under Part II because they come within the scope of the Brussels and Lugano Conventions. However, where there is no actual order, these conventions will not apply and an application from one of those countries will be dealt with under Part III.

If the application for the recovery of maintenance is accompanied by a maintenance order made in one of those countries it will be transmitted by the central authority to the Master of the High Court for determination. If the application is accompanied by maintenance order made in any other country, the central authority will apply to the District Court for enforcement of the order.

In section 22 I am taking the opportunity in the Bill to give statutory effect to very recent changes in common law rules concerning recognition and enforcement of foreign maintenance orders. Previously, under common law, the Irish courts would not recognise or enforce a foreign maintenance order if, as was usually the case, the order was for payment of periodic amounts by the debtor. This was because such an order was not regarded as being final and conclusive because it could be varied, as regards future payments, by the foreign court which granted it.

The 1974 agreement with the United Kingdom and the Brussels and Lugano Conventions made this rule obsolete, but only in respect of orders made in the European Union and EFTA area. The position in relation to orders made in other countries remained unaffected.

However, the High Court judgment in a case entitled McC. v. McC. on 22 June 1993 altered this common law rule. The court decided that the recognition or enforcement of a foreign maintenance order could no longer be refused just because the court which made the original order had power to vary or revoke it. Statutory effect is being given to this principle by section 22.

That section amends the common law rules in one other respect also in order further to facilitate the enforcement of foreign maintenance orders. It abolishes the rule that prevents a foreign order being denied enforcement simply because the respondent was not resident or present in the foreign country when the proceedings began. However, the claimant must have been resident there at the time. The other grounds for refusal — that the judgment was obtained by fraud, or was contrary to natural or constitutional justice or to public policy — will continue to apply.

Thus the District Court will be able to recognise and enforce foreign orders, under section 14 (1) (b), even where the respondent had absconded from the foreign country before the order was granted. If the District Court decides that the order is enforceable, it can be enforced under section 7 of the 1988 Act, which I mentioned earlier.

If a request from a designated state is not accompanied by a maintenance order, or if a request for the enforcement of an order is refused by the District Court, section 14 (1) (c) of the Bill authorises the central authority to apply for a maintenance order to the Circuit Court or the District Court, under the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976. In such cases, the Bill allows the courts to take evidence from the respondent by affidavit or sworn deposition, and to send a copy of that affidavit, via the central authority system, to the relevant designated jurisdiction with a request that the claimant provide an answering affidavit. The courts may also take evidence through a live television link and may make interim orders for the support of claimants until the proceedings are finally determined.

Section 15 provides for a claimant who is resident in Ireland and who applies to the central authority to recover maintenance from a person residing in a designated jurisdiction. Such a claimant may give evidence on sworn deposition before the District Court as to the facts of the claim. The court may then certify that the claim sets out facts from which it may be determined that the respondent owes a duty to maintain the claimant.

If a maintenance order has already been made in Ireland in favour of the claimant, the registrar or clerk of the court will give the claimant a copy of the order and a certificate of other particulars relating to it. A similar provision is not included in Part II of the Bill because it is already covered by section 12 of the 1988 Act.

Section 18 empowers the High Court to grant provisional, including protective, measures upon the application of the central authority arising from a request for the recovery of maintenance under Part III. The 1988 Act contains similar provisions which would apply to applications under Part II. Such measures could include, for example, an injunction to restrain a defendant from disposing of goods or from moving them out of the jurisdiction with the object of defeating any future maintenance order that might be made.

Part IV of the Bill applies to both reciprocating and designated jurisdictions. Section 20 empowers the central authority to obtain information about a defendant's whereabouts or his or her assets. The Rome Convention imposes this obligation on central authorities. The New York Convention contains no similar provision but such a course is certainly not precluded by it, and is in keeping with its spirit. Section 20 (1) places a statutory obligation on Government bodies or office holders to provide such information and, in the case of other bodies or persons, the central authority must obtain an order of the District Court requiring the disclosure of information. I should emphasise that the information which the central authority is allowed to seek is limited to that which is necessary or expedient for the performance of its functions.

Part V of the Bill deals with miscellaneous matters. Section 22, to which I have already referred, amends the common law rules on the enforceability of foreign maintenance orders. Section 23 states that payments under a maintenance order shall be made in Irish currency. The rate of exchange used in converting the amount due under a foreign maintenance order is the exchange rate prevailing on the date the order is declared enforceable. A maintenance order for periodic payments could have a different exchange rate for each periodic payment and that would result in a totally unmanageable situation.

These, then, are the main provisions of the Bill. The Bill is evidence of the Government's commitment to ensuring that persons who leave this country will no longer be able to divest themselves of responsibility for the maintenance of spouses and children who they have left behind. While the Bill has been drafted in a gender-neutral manner, there is no doubt that the principal beneficiaries of the measures I have outlined will be women who have been deserted by their husbands.

It is a measure that is particularly appropriate in this the International Year of the Family and I am confident that, in principle at least, it will receive support from all sides of the House. I wish to assure Deputies that I will be open to any suggestions they may have for its improvement, either during the present debate or by way of amendment later.

I commend the Bill to the House.

I welcome this Bill and particularly the fact that at long last something is being done about the irresponsibles who have cleared off from this country leaving behind spouses, invariably wives and children, sometimes in the most hideous of circumstances.

This Bill will enable us to ratify the New York and Rome Conventions. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate last week in view of the Italian connection in New York, but it will do today. The New York Convention was signed in 1956 and the Rome Convention in 1990. I do not know the history of this, but I just ask why and what are the circumstances which make it possible to do this now.

In the explanatory memorandum we are told that most of these conventions provide for a central authority to be established by each of the contracting parties. The procedure envisaged is that the person claiming maintenance approaches the central authority in her or his own country and completes the necessary documentation. The central authority then submits the documentation to the central authority of the country where the maintenance debtor is living. That central authority then becomes responsible for taking whatever steps are necessary to recover the maintenance and for seeing that maintenance payments are transmitted to the claimant.

It is that phrase "taking whatever steps are necessary to recover the maintenance" to which I would like to pay some attention. Would we have control over the steps taken?

The Minister will be aware that the question of maintenance, how it is assessed and recovered, has been a matter of acute political controversy in the United Kingdom. There have been allegations that men have committed suicide as a result of the demands made upon them and protest marches have been organised. It has been a political hot potato for the Minister responsible. We should pay attention to this because traditionally this has been a problem relating to Britain. We are concerned about the growing numbers of people who clear off to the United States and continental Europe, but usually, for a number of reasons, these people go to Britain. Some consideration should be given to the steps necessary in the context of what has been happening in Britain in recent times.

A child support agency such as that in Britain is presumably the centralised authority referred to in the Bill. The agency in Britain — Northern Ireland has its own child support agency — is responsible for the assessment and collection of maintenance and enforcement of the measure. In making an assessment a formula is used which involves the absent parent paying half their income in child maintenance. The working out of this formula has been apparently at the root of the problems that have arisen in Britain.

Another problem is the allegation that this measure has focused on those who have been responsible, those who have been making payments and who have not tried to hide themselves away, rather than on the shirkers. The alleged suicides involved individuals who felt they were being responsible in paying what was required of them but then found an additional burden was imposed. That is the reason they were under stress and strain and that, allegedly, the suicides took place. The welshers, those who were not prepared to live up to their responsibilities, to a large extent are scot-free.

A number of other matters arise in this area. In the UK where there is divorce a complicating factor of which is that of children of second marriages. We have given some consideration to the problems that may arise in those circumstances; we are trying to anticipate these problems in the run-up to the divorce legislation. For some Irish people there are additional complications. In the absence of divorce, emigration has been in some respects an Irish solution to an Irish problem. People who have experienced difficulty in their marriages have resorted to that solution. Usually it is the husband who goes to Britain and that has led in many instances to irregular arrangements. It is not unknown for the wife and family in Ireland to find out about a second wife and family only when the man dies. That happens more often than is publicised because obviously families in Ireland try to keep it quiet. Problems have arisen in that context. When looking at the British scene we must recognise not only the complications arising from legal divorces and second families but also those arising from irregular liaisons and, in some instances, illegal marriages. Has the Minister given consideration to matters of this nature?

The Child Support Agency in the United Kingdom has responsibility for tracing the absent parent. I fully support the tracing of parents who have not lived up to their responsibility and who have left wives and children in Ireland in pitiable circumstances. I have no time for those people. However, there are people missing who are not in that category and we must consider the ways and means used by the agency in tracing absent parents. The question of confidentiality arises here. The Child Support Agency states, as one would expect, that matters of this nature are handled with the utmost confidence, but it acknowledges that it makes provision for addresses to be disclosed to other British agencies, for example, to housing authorities — in circumstances where rates still exist across the water addresses are provided. I wonder what is the position in terms of confidentiality in those cases.

There is also the question of who will pay for this service. Who pays the central agency in the United Kingdom and other countries for the work that must be done in tracing people and making assessments and collections? That could amount to a very substantial sum of money. While the problem of tracing people from Britain and elsewhere who reside in this country may not be as great as that in the UK, we would still have to take into consideration the amount of money required to carry out this service in the way it ought to be carried out.

As I understand it, the British Child Support Agency charges an annual fee of £44 for assessment and £34 for collection and each parent must pay these fees. What will the position be in the case of an Irish person traced in Britain? Will the people involved have to pay the annual charge or will the State carry the charge? Is there a reciprocal arrangement between Ireland and the other countries covered by the convention whereby they will carry the charge in their countries and we will carry the charge here?

Those are some of the matters to which the Minister did not refer in his speech. Most other matters appear to be easily understood by those in the legal profession who have been following them up. I prefer to deal with what I know about and in that context I am happy to welcome this Bill.

The Progressive Democrats Party welcomes this Bill which will facilitate the reciprocal enforcement of maintenance orders by maintenance debtors in each of the states contracting to the convention.

We have to consider, as Deputy Currie said, whether the Bill is tinkering with a maintenance system that has been severely discredited by the fact that it is so difficult to enforce maintenance orders here. The results of a recent survey of maintenance applications under the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976, by Mr. Peter Ward provides us with useful information and empirical evidence of how ineffectual and limited the maintenance system is in supporting dependent spouses and children. It exposes the low levels of maintenance awards and the high rates of default on those awards. In the majority of cases the amount of maintenance awarded was less than the lowest social welfare payment. In more than 80 per cent of cases the amount awarded was less than a wife would receive if she qualified for deserted wife's allowance. It also showed that maintenance was not paid regularly in 87 per cent of orders paid through the District Court clerk and in 28 per cent of those orders there was no record of any payment ever having been made and 49 per cent were in arrears for six months or more. It is clear from this very useful survey of the District Court and Circuit Court files that the high rates of default on maintenance payments should be a cause of worry for this House. We have to ask in sociological and human terms why so many men can walk away from their dependent children. Some would emigrate but many stay here and evade with all their cunning paying maintenance for their dependent children.

It may well be that since the 1976 Act the father's contribution has been treated in too pecuniary a way which diminishes the role of the father to that of economic provider without any facility to maintain emotional links with his children. If the emotional links are not maintained by frequent access to and contact with his children the man ultimately feels dispossessed and disinclined to be a token provider, providing only an income to the family he has left. Women must start to recognise that men, as fathers of their children have rights which need to be valued. In many cases of custody proceedings women tend to use children as instruments of retribution against their husbands. Women will have to start accepting that it is not only in their own interests because they depend on their former spouse to pay maintenance but in the interests of their children that a strong emotional and contact link be maintained with the father. The dogged insistence that maintenance is only about a financial contribution is not the way forward.

In the context of the current divorce debate we must address the question of ensuring that fathers have emotional contact with their children. In that event this House must look to alternative models of custody following the breakdown of a marriage which would enhance the role of fathers in the day-to-day lives of their children. To doggedly insist that after marital breakdown the father's only contribution to the family is financial is the wrong way forward and any empirical research into maintenance payments shows that financial contact is not enough to maintain emotional contact.

Another aspect of maintenance that is not referred to in this Bill — it is easy to forget it in the context of marital breakdown — is the relevance of maintenance to family units which are not based on marriage, in other words single mothers. We need to address why so many women are not pursuing the father of their child but are plumping to depend on the State. This has to be looked at not only in terms of the expense on the State, but in terms of the reality of their lives. Young women who become single mothers and find themselves at 17 and 18 dependent on the State have little opportunity of ever getting out of the poverty trap. The amount of maintenance they get from the State is very low, there is no obligation to trace the fathers in these cases, and it is based on the presumption that they will remain dependent on the State. This categorical approach which presumes they will stay within the home and not participate in economic activity or educational projects that might lift them out of the landscape of dependency must be questioned. The Minister for Health in recently acknowledging the high and escalating rates of single motherhood has promised to make policy decisions.

This issue has been avoided by a number of Ministers. The Minister for Social Welfare sees single mothers as another dependent class of people. The Minister for Health, perhaps, sees it in terms of caring and providing educational backing for young single mothers. Young girls in school will have to be told that it is not a good idea to become a single mother. In the old days it was simply morally wrong but nowadays, increasingly in a world without God and morality, that gap must be filled by a pragmatic approach. Teachers must educate girls and boys that it is not a good idea to have children outside wedlock at such a young age, and that it is particularly damaging to young girls. It severely obstructs realising their possible potential in the future. I do not think we can continue in future to take the approach of dependency and we need to consider setting up target schemes in schools to try to educate boys and girls not only about sexual morality but the bad decision it is to opt for long term dependency.

This is a technical Bill and would be of interest only to practitioners and to maintenance debtors and creditors who have a problem with the enforcement of maintenance orders in another country. It would be wrong, however, not to spend some time thinking about the whole system of maintenance which has been discredited and is laden with dependency.

We must first begin to examine the slow pace of family law and why it takes so long to develop policies which will help women to become less dependent. Our social welfare system is laden with dependency as it applies to women.

When the Commission on the Status of Women examined the enforcement of maintenance awards it suggested a form of automatic enforcement similar to that which is in operation in the province of Manitoba in Canada. This system would relate closely to what Deputy Currie referred to, namely, some form of automatic administrative system of collecting maintenance. Our present system of collecting maintenance rests solidly with the judicial process. There is no statutory guide as to what constitutes a proper level of maintenance. We are dependent on the courts and the definitions of judges to decide what is a proper level of maintenance. As maintenance is tied up in the courts and the judicial system, there is uncertainty and inconsistency in the levels of maintenance awarded. One common aspect of the awards is that they are uniformly low and, as has been said, some women would be better off on social welfare than on the maintenance levels awarded to them.

In Manitoba, Canada, there is a computerised system for monitoring maintenance payments. All accounts in the programme are automatically monitored by a central computer. In the event of maintenance not being paid, enforcement proceedings are immediately commenced. It is not necessary for the maintenance creditor to initiate proceedings. The usual action taken is garnished off the debtor's earnings. The debtor can also be compelled to complete a financial statement and provide particulars in respect of his employment, income and financial circumstances.

The success of this system depends in part on the fact that the maintenance creditor is not required to institute proceedings. Many women find it expensive to initiate District Court proceedings in order to obtain a maintenance order. In the course of the study of the District Court files, it transpired that approximately 46 per cent of women had to pay for their own solicitors. A small number of them qualified for free legal aid. I realise the Minister has improved the free legal aid facilities but the waiting lists were so long women could not afford to wait and they had to come up with the money to hire their own solicitors in order to initiate maintenance proceedings. Once a person is granted a maintenance order, there is no guarantee of compliance and that is the problem many women are experiencing in the State.

The Commission on the Status of Women believes that the State should play an active part in ensuring that money due on maintenance orders is promptly paid. It believes the State would benefit in the long term because if women receive payments promptly it will reduce the cost to the State of providing social welfare. Deserted wives are not the only people eligible for maintenance payments, an unmarried mother is also entitled to apply for maintenance for her child under the 1976 Act as amended by the Status of Children Act, 1987. The Commission also made the point that if a man is paying maintenance it would encourage him to take an interest in the welfare, upbringing and education of the child. Too much emphasis has been put on financial maintenance and husbands have not had sufficient access, facility or generosity from the Judiciary and from women. They not only want to remain the economic providers for their children, they also want to adopt a hands-on approach and maintain a continuing emotional attachment to their children.

The Commission recommended that the State should institute an automatic enforcement programme prosecuted by the State to ensure payment of maintenance orders. It also recommended that these conventions be ratified, which is what we are doing today.

When people talk about divorce and poverty as it affects women and children, the problem is not only the divorce, because that is merely the legal dissolution of the marriage to allow a person to remarry again, it is also the breakdown of a relationship. It is that breakdown of the relationship which impoverishes both men and women because there is generally only one salary coming into the household and the obligation on people to live apart and maintain two residences essentially means there is less money to go around. That is the unfortunate fact we must face up to and for that reason the controversy that has arisen in Britain about the child support agency is one which we should debate in this House. We should decide to what extent the State should force the concept that parenthood is for life. During the course of the debate on divorce, I hope ample opportunity will be given to men — and not only women's groups — to express their sincerely held views about the role of men as fathers.

A recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights vindicated the rights of single fathers in relation to adoption and ruled that the father should be consulted before the child is put up for adoption. There is no guarantee that this State will change the law to comply with that decision. We have shown in the past that we can be selective about the implementation of decisions from the European Court of Human Rights. We implement them when it suits us and in our own time and that must be questioned.

All of these questions arise because of the changing structure of family life and the changing role of women in society. The recent case before the European Court of Human Rights was an interesting one which highlighted the issue of men who father children outside of wedlock having a role and a responsibility, not only by way of financial maintenance but by way of emotional maintenance also. It is interesting to note that in Britain, only 29 per cent of single mothers pursue the father of their child for maintenance. I do not know the figures for this country but from my knowledge of my constituency and reading media reports of the large numbers of single parents and their dependency rates, it would appear that women have moved away from being dependent on men but are content to be dependent on the State. That is something which women and the women's movement must question because there is little point in women seeking independence politically or economically if they are quite happy to become dependent on the State. I question whether that is an improvement in the status of women.

On the enforcement of maintenance orders, it is important to consider how judges define what is proper maintenance. This is not referred to in the Constitution which is a solid protector of the family, guarantees to protect the family from attack and vindicates it as the moral guardian. Recently we had the experience of legislation which had the total support of this House being struck down by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the principle in the Bill, giving joint ownership to a woman, a spouse in the home, interfered with the moral authority of the family as protected in the Constitution. We have been severely handcuffed on occasions by our Constitution as to the extent to which we can intervene to protect women within the family structure based on marriage. The obligation on a spouse to look after a dependent spouse and children is not contained in the Constitution but in the 1976 Act. Will the Minister confirm that since the Financial Consequences of Marital Breakdown was written by Peter Ward no statutory provision governs the effect of a second relationship on the amount of maintenance award to be made? We must look at this in the context of the forthcoming divorce referendum.

In his book Ward states:

For any further indication of the principles or guidelines to be applied we must look at decided cases of the High Court or Supreme Court. The closest we have come to a judicial definition of "proper" maintenance is the setting down by the Supreme Court of what were called "broad principles" governing the award of maintenance:

"The court.... must first have regard to the somewhat pathetic fact that upon the separation of a husband and wife, and particularly a husband and wife with children, it is inevitable that all the parties will suffer a significant diminution in the overall standard of living. The necessity for two separate residences to be provided for makes this an inescapable consequence of the separation. Subject to that overriding consideration a court must, of course, ascertain the minimum reasonable requirements of, in this case, the wife and the children for whose upkeep she is responsible; it must then ascertain the income earned or capable of being earned by the wife, apart from the maintenance for which the husband is responsible; its next task is to ascertain the true net take-home pay or income of the husband; and lastly, it must ascertain the reasonable living expenses of the husband bearing in mind the general consideration of economy affecting all the parties concerned, but leaving him with a reasonable standard of living".

This is recognised as the protected level below which a man's earnings cannot fall. The attachment of earnings is relevant only to those men who are in secure employment and not self-employed. Many men on low income who are subject to attachment of earnings orders will opt not to work at all and their wife and children will ultimately be dependent on the State.

The maintenance system is not working satisfactorily. It is based on a judicial model and there are all kinds of inconsistencies. If a man persistently defaults on his maintenance payments he can be sent to jail for three months. That is not a realistic enforcement option. It further exacerbates bad feeling within the family and it is expensive for the State to keep a person in jail for three months. I do not know how often this is used but I am sure the threat is used to make a defaulter pay in time. The attachment of earnings has been of some use but has little relevance to those who are unemployed or self-employed.

The Combat Poverty Agency carried out an interesting study on the poverty of lone parents. They would not only have looked at the case of single mothers but widows, deserted wives, separated spouses and so on. There are a large number of single parent and lone parent families and the common denominator is poverty. They are living below the poverty line and this has huge sociological implications. It is very difficult for lone parents to break out of the poverty cycle because of the State's refusal to take any hand, act or part in providing or encouraging child care facilities. The burden of looking after children still rests primarily on the shoulders of women. The majority of lone parent families are headed by women and if we do not alter the dogged presumption that they will be claimants, we will always see them as such and not as women with aspirations and potential for economic activity. We will create an underclass of poor women. The traditional economic dependence of women within marriage has been switched to the State. If we do not change that, the progress we have made in the women's movement will be set at nought for thousands of women who will be long term dependants on the State.

I welcome the Bill but I ask the Minister to consider this area and perhaps liaise with the Ministers for Social Welfare and Health. I congratulate the Minister for honouring his commitment, as recommended in the White Paper, that he would bring in this legislation to give effect to the reciprocal arrangements in other countries. I look forward to his reply.

I welcome the Bill. It is an addition to the legislation dealing with marital breakdown and the maintenance of children and spouses. The Bill enables Ireland to ratify two international conventions one of which, the New York Convention, was signed in 1956, 38 years ago. We may be making progress but we are doing so slowly. The setting up of a central authority is an important feature of the Bill and it will make a difference to those claiming maintenance.

I am concerned about the question of a different relationship in the US and Canada and I will pursue this further later. These countries are traditional destinations for many Irish people, no more so than this week when half the country seems to be there. Many people emigrate there.

I welcome the extension of the powers of the District Court and increasing the fine for failure to give notice of change of address. These nitty-gritty details are important. I assume claimants can apply for attachment of earnings orders under the new procedures. They are particularly effective where someone is earning a salary. The Family Law Bill dealt with this to an extent and improved matters somewhat. The fact that the Bill provides administrative assistance to people is crucial. Were it not so, women would not be able to avail of the procedures as it would be beyond their means to do so. The cost of legal representation is already a problem for women living with marital breakdown. Whether we like it or not, it is through the judicial system that women win maintenance and they must go back into the system if the maintenance is not paid.

The rate of marital breakdown is on the increase. According to the 1991 census 55,000 people considered themselves separated and that graph is rising. Increased mobility, high levels of emigration and greater integration at European level means the resolution of marital breakdown by reasonable and just arrangements which may increasingly involve going outside the country for recourse in the future. This Bill helps to make that possible at international level. It sets out clearly the framework within which it can be done and how a spouse can claim against an errant partner who skips the country or a spouse from another country can claim from someone who skips into our country to evade his responsibilities. I do not know how many foreign maintenance applications there are for people living outside the country but I know that the number of people who apply is much lower than the number who are eligible. It is too easy for a partner or spouse to disappear without trace. Many men escape their responsibilities by changing domicile and the world is a big place. The Bill will help to make the world marginally smaller and more difficult for spouses to evade their responsibilities.

We should not go over the top about the merits of the Bill as it also contains limitations in terms of society and the inherent imbalance which still exists between spouses reinforced and copper-fastened by our Constitution. The Matrimonial Home Bill perished on the rock of the Constitution. In the light of the Supreme Court decision, the Second Commission on the Status of Women recommendation on community property within marriage seems like some crazed utopian dream. Yet, if there is ever to be true equality within marriage this issue will have to be tackled. As long as one partner is financially dependent on the other there is always the possibility of exploitation. Money means power and nowhere is this more evident than within the marriage contract. The concept of adult dependency is totally out of sync with reality at a time when women are claiming the right to be equal. Regardless of our aspirations, we are still governed by a Constitution which oppresses women. Many women, particularly those who stay at home to rear their children, are financially dependent on their spouses. Many are never threatened by that dependency but in the case of marriages which have failed the financial disputes are often the most bitter.

Over the years legislation has been devised to deal with the reality of marital breakdown. This legislation has served thousands of women and children and this Bill is being introduced at a time when a challenge is about to be made to the constitutionality of the Judicial Separation Act, 1989. Nobody can know the outcome of that challenge or its possible impact on the maintenance rights of women and children. Time will tell.

In the meantime there is anecdotal evidence as to what the word "deserted" means. Despite legislation and the official structures in place for deserted women who have to care for children, the reality of desertion is often terrifying. For example, yesterday I was contacted by a women from a rural area whose husband ran off with another women seven weeks ago and is now living in Germany. This woman who has four children and is living on £82.80 per week does not know or care what her maintenance rights are or the elaborate legal structures, which are about to be strengthened, which will enable her to chase her husband across Europe for maintenance. All she knows is that she has to care for four children, one of whom will be going into hospital this week for his thirty second operation. Even though she does not know how she will pay it, she is not worried about her mortgage; all that bothers her is that her son is going into hospital for an operation and that she will not be able to talk to him on the phone if it is disconnected. That is the reality of desertion, and no legal system can fully provide for that woman. Her problems arise from the fact that she is dependent on another human being to provide for her needs and those of her children and he does not care sufficiently to provide for them.

When the Minister introduced the Family Law Bill he stated that the Government was committed to a society which cares and a system of laws and administrative measures which deal comprehensively with the issues of marital breakdown. How this works out in practice is another story. For example, the current policy of maintenance recovery operated by the Department of Social Welfare is devised in such a way as to oblige partners to contribute to the cost levied on the State to maintain lone parents. According to the legislation, the State is entitled to recover some of its costs from the relatives who are liable. While this is logical and, in global terms, fair, the reality is that it means a major loss of income for many women affected by the scheme; it is a major loss of income for families already struggling under terrible financial constraints. These families see one of the planks of their support being pulled out from under them by the Department of Social Welfare. We need to be careful when talking about less dependency on the State. The State has an obligation in this area and pulling one of the planks of financial support from under poor women is not necessarily a good or worthwhile endeavour. For many families it is the move which puts them under.

Despite accessibility to courts and local knowledge, research shows that approximately one-tenth of family law maintenance orders are honoured on a regular basis. I pay credit to the District Court clerks who carry much of the burden of pursuing errant partners. I can only imagine what the success rate will be when women are attempting to have maintenance orders served in Australia. The District Court clerk plays a vital role in ensuring regular payments of maintenance and in my locality has done more than any other individual to guarantee the maintenance of women by ensuring that their spouses cannot evade their responsibilies. However, even the most committed District Court clerk has to wrestle with a mass of red tape to ensure payment by spouses in the UK, with which we have an agreement. Under the present procedure, the court clerk must make an application to the court, the case is then sent to the Home Office in Britain where it is referred to the Magistrate's Court in the area in which the man lives. This procedure can take up to six months during which time the man may hear about the application and disappear into oblivion. I welcome any measure which will simplify that procedure and hope that the central authority proposed in the Bill will succeed in reducing the level of bureaucracy. If it does not do this, the Minister should look at ways of speeding up and simplifying the procedure.

Problems also arise in the case of familities who have emigrated, particularly to the US, and where the marriage has broken up. The women are so determined to hold on to their children and come back to Ireland that they will sign anything, thereby signing away all their rights to property and maintenance. These women, of whom I suspect there are increasing numbers, are pretty well destitute when they return to Ireland, are placed in an invidious position when applying for State support and dependent on their parents or other relatives. Their priority was to ensure they held on to their children. It can be argued legally that the women signed the document under duress but this brings us back to the point about whether women can afford legal representation. I hope that that kind of situation can be minimised under the Bill.

One of the fundamental aspects of this matter is whether women can pay for legal representation. I support the idea of taking the issue of maintenance out of the judicial system but I do not think it will happen, certainly not in the short term. We have a form of free legal aid but it is very restrictive. I appreciate the efforts made by the Minister in this area. I will not minimise or ignore the efforts he made to shorten the waiting lists and increase the geographic spread. I commend him on his efforts which have made some difference, however, this is not enough to deal with the avalanche of cases. Despite his best efforts the aid is too little and too thinly spread.

I am shocked when women on very modest incomes tell me they did not qualify for free legal aid and will have to carry the legal costs themselves. Of course, that is a disincentive to force the issue to court. Rationalisation of international arrangements of maintenance is a beneficial move but does not deal with existing deficiencies and should not blind us to them. One thing is clear, as a society we have not faced up to the extent of marital breakdown and its implications.

Many of the problems we face are immensely complex and cannot be dealt with simply by a Minister for Equality and Law Reform introducing legislation that will modify the glaring omissions in the existing system. We live in an era of individualism in which people do their own thing. There are now tremendous clashes at a personal level, with the demands of adults. It is interesting to observe that there are now demands of unmarried fathers, which must be recognised — I am not arguing against that — but it still amounts to arguments and fights over territory between adults. We have not yet reached the point of saying that the needs and rights of children must be central to the debate. For example, in the White Paper on divorce children barely figure. If you read the official report you will observe that children are marginal, which reflects the reality of marital breakdown. We have not faced up to the hard facts of what marital breakdown is doing to children. I welcome that the European case on adoption law was brought and won but it must be seen in the context of the needs of that child, or any child or children, where there are two parents who cannot reach agreement in the best interests of that child or children. We all know that parents can insist, for their own needs, on unreasonable demands which create additional emotional and social problems for the family.

We have not really begun to examine what is happening to children in such circumstances; we do not know enough about the impact on them of marital breakdown; we have not assessed their rights and needs. I am very glad that the Exeter report in England is opening people's eyes to that aspect because we all have a responsibility to ensure that, when divorce legislation is put in place — as I hope it will be, it is important to have divorce — we understand what we are doing and ensure that children are protected throughout the process because, for too long, children have been the losers financially, emotionally and socially. Whenever there is a debate about the rights of adults only we must consider the needs of the coming generation.

There is a strong argument for saying that divorce should be straightforward, quick and immediate for a married couple with no children but that, where there are children, we must look very closely at what type of legislation is put in place. For example, I did not know until I had investigated that a childless deserted wife cannot claim deserted wife's allowance until she is 40; which is interesting because it recognises there are differences where there are children, regardless of whether the family is going through a separation process.

Unemployment is a major factor in the health of individuals, families and society at large. Many young women have children, not because they took a decision to have a baby, but because they were not sufficiently informed or able to take a decision not to have a child. I have no doubt that for many young women the option of having a decent job is not a runner and that certainly makes motherhood a lot more attractive. The impulse to be a mother is very strong and understandable. However, if we are to ensure, first, that adults are not dependent on one another in an unhealthy way, we must deal with the question of unemployment. If we are to ensure that our young people grow up, choosing to have children when they are ready to make that choice, we must ensure that there is sex education nationally, accompanied by availability of contraception, but also that there are real — not notional — alternatives for young women. Most young women leave school well educated — indeed it is a great credit to our education system that, regardless of where you live, there is a chance of a good education — but too many face the dole queue. That is why unemployment must be taken into account when talking about the modern family, a single parent family or one with parents living together rearing their children.

At present a deserted wife cannot participate in the new community employment scheme whereas a lone parent can which, in itself, is a deterrent to getting married. All these restrictions on people within the social welfare system, people who want to work, who want to carve out a life of independence, hold them down.

I welcome the Bill; it represents a small step forward for womankind. Certainly its provisions will not deal with the problems of maintenance, but, at the same time, I am glad the Minister introduced it. I hope it will improve matters. Many people who have lived abroad are likely to face circumstances in which the provisions of a Bill such as this will make a difference. The central authority which provides a service to women is a very good move and I welcome it.

I welcome this Bill and compliment the Minister on another legislative provision that will assist many unfortunate persons in circumstances in which they cannot pursue their spouse for maintenance payments in countries other than the United Kingdom. With the greater mobility within the European Union and other countries, this Bill is timely. Everybody knows the problems of families when one partner walks out and the consequent financial hardships. Usually the woman is left to deal with most of the problems. The reciprocal arrangement already in place with the United Kingdom in this respect is working well in their interests. This means that spouses who, to date, have evaded their responsibilities will, in future, be forced to face their irresponsibility.

The legislation introduced by the Minister with regard to pre-marriage preparation should help to concentrate people's minds on their future commitments. I note that the provisions of this Bill will enable people to pursue maintenance payments in over 40 countries, the financial difficulties of families where one partner walks out are always substantial.

In the housing area, an immediate problem arises when there is desertion and loss of maintenance as a result. Local authorities must pick up the pieces in attempting to find alternative housing for a family at enormous cost additional to that occasioned by their already overcrowded housing lists. Many people on their waiting lists could be quite reasonably housed if maintenance payments were properly pursued in these circumstances. If financial arrangements could be devised to keep people in their homes some local authority housing lists would not be inundated by people forced to seek local authority housing resulting from such irresponsible behaviour. The building societies have great difficulty coping with these matters. The Eastern Health Board is usually asked to provide an emergency service in the form of family income supplement, mortgage supplement and welfare assistance. These are serious problems for the deserted spouse. When people move house school attendance is affected; moving from one house to another, in the absence of one parent, can be very traumatic for young children. All these problems combined force one-parent families into severe difficulties which affect their health, etc, and in many ways, banks and building societies are not sufficiently flexible and compassionate to deal with them. This Bill, which does not answer the problem, enables people to pursue the spouse who acts in a totally irresponsible way and who, up to now, has been able to avoid the responsibility in over 40 countries.

The Bill provides for the setting up for a central authority to deal with this problem. This Authority will go a long way towards addressing some of the issues arising from the difficulties which families now experience.

I welcome the thrust of this legislation and what it intends to do. The theory behind the Bill is spot on. For some time there has been a need to introduce equity into the system for the deserted wife whose partner is in another jurisdiction, apparently having a very comfortable lifestyle while she has to manage and scrimp and save and barely survive with the help of her family.

There is one problem with this legislation. It is similar to the appeals system developed in the Department of Social Welfare. With no disrespect to my friends in the Department of Social Welfare, I have to say that at the very sign of red tape my blood runs cold. I hate to think that reasonably progressive legislation such as this might become bogged down in a labyrinth of negotiation, counter-negotiation, investigation and counter-investigation in relation to the central authority.

Let us develop the scene. For some time there has been great difficulty obtaining maintenance from runaway or errant spouses. There is no question but that the matter needs to be dealt with. However, there is a tendency in a Department other than the Minister's to seize this opportunity to collect the money from the spouses without any intention of passing it to the wife and children. Up to now in a minority of cases the remaining partner with the children was getting a certain amount of maintenance. If the wife received only a certain amount the balance was made up by supplementary welfare. If she received in excess of £80, or what was regarded as a substantial amount, she did not qualify for deserted wives allowance — she could only qualify if she qualified for benefit — but that Department has now decided to means test people in receipt of various benefits.

A few years ago there was a slight benefit to the wife who, perhaps twice or three times a year, received some benefit from the husband, even though there was no maintenance order. On the basic allowance, a deserted wife who has a mortgage and two or three children will not dine too often on caviar. What is likely to happen is that the departed spouse will pay maintenance to the Department. In theory the Department is collecting the money from the spouse to pass it on to the wife. If the wife thinks she will get that money as an added bonus it will not be that way.

There is another side to this issue; the enforcement of a maintenance order. I have dealt with as many cases and I am sure every Member has been inundated with similar cases especially in the past seven or eight years. How does one enforce a maintenance order in the outback? I do not think it can be done. In the event of failure to enforce a maintenance order could it possibly reflect on the wife who is dependent on it? Is there a possibility that the Department of Social Welfare would get tired of failing to enforce a maintenance order and decide to reduce the wife's benefit or assistance on the basis that they believe she may be getting assistance about which they do not know? The central authority will have the task of policing that situation. When replying perhaps the Minister would give some idea how it will operate. I know how it is supposed to operate and I am sure the Minister has no doubt about how it is supposed to operate but I have a sinking feeling that in a year or two what I have just described will arise. I have seen that trend develop during the past year or so and I have no reason to believe it will not continue.

Deputy McManus referred to a number of court cases, both national and international, that will have a bearing on our legislation. I would be delighted to see an unmarried father take an interest in the future well being of his child, but for the best of reasons. I sincerely hope that a recent judgement in the international courts would be taken as the benchmark not for retrospective recognition but for a new thinking on the part of such fathers that they intend to have an ongoing interest in their children. That should be encouraged. I am a little cynical when matters of this nature determined in court have retrospective effect while there is no intention at this stage of implementing the court decisions simply because they are out of date. I will not dwell on it any further except to say I would be of like mind with Deputy McManus. I hope that legislation which has to be introduced in order to comply with decisions of the international courts will be presented for the right reasons not merely to make provision for compensation, for the want of a better word.

It is important at this point to compare the number of cases involving maintenance being dealt with by public representatives today with the number eight to ten years ago. In the average week eight to ten years ago a public representative may have had to deal with one or two cases; today, particularly in the greater Dublin area, the number is far greater, perhaps up to ten cases per week. This is an indication of the seriousness of the problem. Whether for better or worse, society is changing and because of this we have to tailor our legislation to meet requirements.

Deputy McManus dealt with the consequences of marital breakdown at some length. I ask the Minister to convey to his colleague, the Minister for Social Welfare, who is a decent, conscientious and caring Minister, my view that during the past six months there has been a tendency within that Department to make life a little harder for people in this category. I do not know if this amounts to a backlash — I do not care — but it is all very fine for people to say that some people in society have things too easy and that everything is being done for them; it is a different story when it happens at one's door. If any of these critics has to deal with this matter at first hand it will be brought home to them suddenly that life is not all that rosy if a wife is deserted by her partner leaving her on her own with three or four children, a mortgage in arrears with the bailiff ready to arrive at the door. In order to receive her rights she will have to face the numerous obstacles, pitfalls and snags which lie in store.

In the past 24 hours a solicitor informed a woman who finds herself in this position that she faces two months of severe hardship. I am not sure I would have paid my legal adviser for such advice — it is not the advice I would have given — but he was highlighting starkly the problems that she will encounter. It should be possible within a reasonable period to put procedures in place to protect the spouses and children concerned but it does not always work this way. Often it works in reverse. In a number of cases women have been forced to act quickly, to vacate or sell the family home without having time to make adequate preparations or provision for their family even though the problem was not of their making.

There is hardly a Member of the House who has not dealt with such cases. This is one way of keeping politicians informed of the reality as opposed to the theory.

I welcome the legislation and I hope that in practice it will be of benefit without hindering access for the woman and her children to their rights or creating any stigma. They have enough problems in trying to survive in what is fast becoming an impersonal and uncaring world without having another burden imposed on them. I hope this legislation will not place a further layer of bureaucracy or red tape in their way. I also hope that we will not reach the stage where we will try to enforce maintenance orders where this is impossible. The Minister should liaise with his colleague to ensure that this does not happen. He should bear in mind that we did not face problems such as those that have been mentioned three years ago.

I compliment the Minister on introducing this legislation for the right reasons. I expressed some minor reservations and my criticisms are valid based on my experience as a public representative in dealing with people whom this legislation is intended to assist.

I wish to share my time with Deputy Eoin Ryan.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

I welcome this Bill and commend the Minister for bringing it forward. It is evidence of the Government's commitment to ensure that persons who leave this country will no longer be able to escape their responsibilities to provide maintenance for the spouses and children they leave behind. For far too long the responsibilities of spouses to their children in particular have been forgotten. In cases involving marital breakdown there are many Government agencies which provide assistance for partners but we tend to forget the damage done to and the trauma suffered by children.

This is a complex issue and it is difficult for any Government to legislate for it. This Bill will assist claimants in Ireland who wish to recover maintenance from persons living abroad. This is a move in the right direction. Every public representative in the course of their work deals on a regular basis with cases involving marital breakdown. They try to ensure that spouses receive maintenance from their estranged husbands, or wives, or assistance from the health boards. It is interesting to note that less than 15 per cent of family law maintenance orders are honoured in full. In that regard we must pay tribute to the work of District Court clerks. From my experience, they are honourable, diligent and hardworking and are genuinely concerned about the problems they encounter and will go to great lengths to ensure that maintenance orders are honoured in full.

Will the Government explore the possibility of extending the tax free allowance system to ensure spouses receive maintenance to which they are entitled? This would involve the Departments of Finance and Social Welfare. When, say, a male spouse deserts the family home, his tax free allowance could be adjusted so that a certain amount would be taken from his wages each week and given to his wife and children in the form of a social welfare payment. The system could also be extended to other European countries to cover spouses who emigrate. Prior to receiving a tax free allowance in another jurisdiction spouses should have to seek clearance from the Revenue Commissioners here stating that their tax affairs and social responsibilities to their families at home are honoured. The introduction of such a system might cause some difficulties for the Departments of Finance and Social Welfare, but it is worth considering as it would go some way towards alleviating the difficulties experienced by deserted spouses.

I welcome the Bill, it is a small move in the right direction in a complex area. If we continue to move forward in this direction we will be doing something positive to help unfortunate people in this position. Difficulties in this area are not confined to the working class; from my experience there are more cases of desertion in the middle and upper class areas. We should not focus on one area of our society as the problem is experienced in all areas. I hope the Bill has a speedy passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas.

I, too, commend the Minister for introducing the Bill which is appropriate in this, the International Year of the Family. However, many could argue correctly that it is long overdue. All of us in public life are constantly reminded of the problem of runaway spouses. In most cases the problem of desertion has an adverse effect on women and children left to fend for themselves when the man deserts the family home. Many men lack responsibility in this regard. From my experience, in nearly all cases of desertion the woman must pick up the pieces and sort out her life and that of her children. I welcome the fact that under the provisions of the Bill men and women can get maintenance from spouses who emigrate to other states, I think the Bill includes 40 other states.

Deputy Durkan referred to the bureaucracy and red tape surrounding this measure, I hope it does not get bogged down in red tape. A central authority, who should take legal proceedings if necessary, should be given responsibility in this area. I hope people do not have to wait an inordinate time to receive maintenance payments.

Some Members referred to the difficulty single mothers encounter in securing maintenance from the father of their children. Since I was elected to the council in 1985 I have encountered many single mothers seeking housing, social welfare and so on, but I could count on one hand the number of times such girls are accompanied by a male partner. Unfortunately, there is a perception in our society that men can walk away from their responsibilities, but that is wrong. We must all take responsibility for our actions. Fathers and mothers should be responsible for providing housing, education and so on for their children. This Bill is particularly appropriate here because so many of our people emigrate. It will now be possible to secure maintenance from spouses in a number of other jurisdictions.

The Bill has many technical aspects, but it will benefit a large number of people in future. I commend the Minister for introducing it. No doubt it will be welcomed by many.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I congratulate the Minister on introducing the Bill. This is progressive legislation and will improve the position for many families. The Bill is straightforward in that it will set up a central authority to deal with maintenance. The Minister referred to the experience gained from the central authority set up to deal with kidnapping of children. There is no reason this new authority should not be successful in dealing with the area of maintenance. It is interesting that it is only now we are discussing a more rational and co-ordinated approach to maintenance internationally. It is obviously part of an international process whereby we recognise more and more the seriousness of this issue, which does not have boundaries. Because of its seriousness, it is important that it is dealt with to the highest standards, legally and practically. Many Deputies referred to this. Many of us know of individuals who have had difficulties securing maintenance for themselves and their children. In the past the legal system has responded rather slowly to tackling this problem in an appropriate way and ensuring there is an easy and effective way for women to secure maintenance for their children. I know of many cases that have caused great stress to families.

The giving or receiving of maintenance can be used in a manipulative way that can be damaging to children. We want to create a system that is as objective and effective as possible and under which women can easily secure their maintenance payments.

Last year I visited the North of Ireland and looked at the system in place there. The system introduced there and in the UK has led to a great deal of debate as to the responsibilities of the departing spouse and how to ensure people meet their family obligations. It is easy to be extreme in this area. The UK experience is one from which we should learn. There have been difficulties. People have felt that the arm of the State has been over-intrusive in their lives. We have erred on the other side in that in the past we have not highlighted or adequately enforced provisions requiring individuals to take responsibility for their families. Some spouses have disappeared and many have no sense of an ongoing financial obligation. This Bill is important as it states there is an ongoing financial obligation which is not restricted to place of residence.

In terms of the real effect of this Bill for women, it raises other issues including that of access to legal aid and information. The AIM Group for Family Law Reform produced a leaflet entitled, "How can I get maintenance" and answered all the obvious questions someone in that position would have. That highlights the importance of ensuring such information is available to women at the point they need it and that they do not have to reinvent the wheel to gain access to information in the Bill and to use the central authority for the service.

The Bill raises questions about the importance of supporting voluntary organisations who provide information on this area of the law and the need for the Department of Social Welfare, the Department of Equality and Law Reform and others to provide detailed information in a way that is accessible and easily understood to those most likely to need it. That is an important element. It does not necessarily mean that because legislation is in place those whose spouses who are living in another country will automatically know there is a procedure available to recoup their maintenance entitlements. It is important to support the voluntary organisations working in this area and to ensure information is made available by the appropriate Departments to those who need it. Access to the law and information continue to be of extreme importance.

When I was a member of the Government appointed body, the Commission on the Status of Women which reported more than a year ago, one of the areas examined was how to develop an effective maintenance system. Some legislation introduced has moved in this direction and that is helpful.

There is an interesting operation in Canada; a form of automatic enforcement is in existence in Manitoba. It is interesting in terms of responding to clients' needs in a speedy and effective way. In Ireland the remedies available to enforce the payment of court orders for maintenance consist of imprisonment on foot of an order for committal or attachment of earnings. I am sure the Minister will agree that the attachment of earnings procedure is useful but there are difficulties. It is not always available as quickly and as easily as one would like. Obviously imprisonment is not the answer; often it will make a bad situation worse.

The form of automatic enforcement in existence in the province of Manitoba consists of a computerised system for monitoring maintenance payments. All accounts in the programme are automatically monitored by a central computer. If maintenance payments are not paid enforcement procedures are commenced immediately; it is interesting to note that it is not necessary for the maintenance creditor to initiate proceedings. The usual action taken is garnishment of the debtor's earnings. The debtor can also be compelled to complete a financial statement and provide particulars in respect of his employment, income and financial circumstances. As a last resort the debtor can be summoned before the Master of the Family Division of the Court of the Queen's Bench when he is required to show cause why he should not pay. Regarding the effectiveness of the system, approximately 85 per cent of orders registered in the computer system some years ago were collected.

It is interesting to note defaults in the payments of maintenance are detected within ten working days after the payment is due and enforcement proceedings are commenced within one month of the first default.

The procedure is speedy and effective in picking up deficiencies in the system or failure to pay and a remedy is put in place immediately. It appears the reason for the success of that system depends in part on the fact that the maintenance creditor does not have to institute proceedings. That is a critical part of its success.

National and international legislation accept that the State should play an active role in ensuring that money due on maintenance orders is paid promptly. In the long term the State benefits if women receive payment promptly and the cost to the State of providing social welfare and other supports needed if maintenance is not paid are reduced. That is another important aspect of the Bill. It has implications for the public purse and the amount of social welfare benefit paid to people who do not receive maintenance payments.

The Bill pinpoints further the responsibility of parents and puts in place a procedure to ensure that those who have fathered children have an ongoing responsibility. That may have the effect of ensuring that fathers, with whom otherwise there may not be contact, would take an interest in the welfare, upbringing and education of their children. At a psychological level this can be important. We must be careful, and a certain amount of monitoring is needed in this area, to avoid manipulation of a child as a means of seeking revenge against the mother. The children who end up in dreadful custody conflicts could be termed "the children of Armageddon". Many such cases arise annually. Inevitably, the issue of maintenance is tied up in conflicts about custody. It is therefore important to ensure under law both at national and international level that families get their maintenance entitlements.

This Bill is a step in the right direction, although it will not solve all our problems nationally. There is still the major issue of making sure that the system is as responsive as possible. In the case of self-employed people, for example, there are ongoing difficulties getting information, proving income and ensuring that the right amounts are paid. We must continue to make every effort to improve the system which has been the Cinderella of social welfare for so long.

This Bill reflects the greater attention that we give to the rights of women and to changing family situations both nationally and internationally where we are dealing more and more with families that have separated, where there may be no contact with an absent parent, and where there are people living outside the country who have obligations within the country. That is the reality and it is important that we deal with it as supportively as possible.

The question of access to legal aid and to information is intimately tied into this Bill which will only become a reality when those two areas are dealt with as well. There is need for ongoing reform and the commission document made a number of recommendations as to how that might be brought about. I would be interested in hearing more about how the concept of a central authority has worked in other areas. Will the Minister tell us what the procedures will be and comment on how he envisages it working here? What administrative assistance will be available to those who seek to use this Bill? The Minister said that enactment of the Bill will provide administrative assistance to persons both in the State and in certain other countries who wish to claim maintenance from persons living in other jurisdictions and that the great majority of such claimants are women. Giving the sections of the Bill real effect will depend on how that administrative assistance is made available to women; it will be the test of the Bill.

The question of maintenance has had a long and unsatisfactory history and has been badly dealt with within our social welfare system. The lack of adequate legislation has resulted in huge social, psychological and emotional effects which have drained the individual resources of the women and families concerned and also the system itself. This Bill is another step towards ensuring that the question of maintenance becomes not just the personal or individual responsibility of an individual woman or man trying to see justice done, but has moved it firmly on to the political stage and the area of responsibility of the State which is setting up the legislation to ensure that justice is seen to be done and that ongoing responsibilities by parents towards their children are met inside or outside this country. As such this Bill will be welcomed by all sides of the House and I am delighted to have had the opportunity to speak on it. However, this is not the end of the story. There is a need for us to continually gather information, to publish it and assess the system in order to gauge what changes are needed to further improve the system.

I welcome the Bill and commend the Minister for bringing it in. It is a milestone on the road to reform to rid our system of the injustices perpetrated against spouses when their partners desert and go abroad. For a long time it was too easy for people to turn their backs on their responsibilities and simply disappear. I, too, have come across many examples of people from all income brackets who have been left with huge mortgages. They could not sell their houses because, in the past, they needed the consent of their spouse. They were thus left to live stressful and traumatic lives and to depend on the State to assist them. The purpose of the Bill is to address a terrible injustice but, in doing so, it helps the State because when it is fully implemented it will be possible to ensure that those irresponsible spouses, fathers in the main, who have turned their backs on their responsibilities, meet their obligations.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to put those few words on the record on Second Stage and look forward to the debate in the Committee on Legislation and Security when other aspects will be teased out in greater detail.

I thank all the Deputies who spoke in this debate and very much appreciate the general welcome they gave to this legislation. However, I have to concede that there are many provisions in the Bill which are technical. This is an important Bill, the details of which we can discuss on Committee Stage.

I will now deal with some of the issues that have arisen this morning. Deputy Currie referred to the Child Support Agency in the UK, which is not the central authority referred to in this Bill. The United Kingdom has ratified the New York Convention but has not yet ratified the Rome Convention. The central authority in the UK operates through the Home Office; the central authority referred to the Bill is concerned simply with assisting maintenance creditors to obtain what they are entitled to and it only operates at the request of the maintenance creditor. This differs considerably from the purpose of the Child Support Agency which is the internal UK collecting operation. I am aware of widespread press comment in connection with that and there has been much dissatisfaction with it. I have heard reports of suicides also, referred to by Deputy Currie. That agency will not be involved with the international arrangements operating through the medium of this Bill. The Home Office, as the central authority, will deal with that matter.

A number of Deputies referred to the cost of the service provided by the central authority. Both the Rome and New York Conventions preclude central authorities from charging fees in respect of services rendered on behalf of an applicant. This does not extend to expenditure incurred by central authorities in engaging law-years for the purposes of court proceedings and therefore the question of legal aid arises.

First I will deal with the case of Irish persons wishing to recover maintenance from foreign countries. Applications to have Irish maintenance orders enforced in EU and EFTA countries will fall within the scope of the Brussels and Lugano Conventions. These conventions already have provisions concerning the granting of legal aid. A person who wishes to have a maintenance order enforced and who has been legally aided in his or her own country is entitled to the most favourable legal aid treatment available in all other EU and EFTA states. In the case of an Irish maintenance creditor who is eligible for civil legal aid here, he or she — usually she — will have obtained legal assistance in Ireland when bringing the initial action for maintenance and she will be entitled to legal aid from the authorities of the country in which she is seeking the enforcement. Legal aid varies from country to country but the person will be entitled to the best legal aid service having regard to the local regulations on legal aid in those countries.

It is clear from the Martin Ó hUigín report that it was not possible to agree that all foreign maintenance creditors should automatically be legally aided within the context of the Rome Convention. Member states could not agree that foreign maintenance creditors, as a class, are disadvantaged to the extent that they should be treated in a manner which entitles them to preferential treatment over and above that provided for their own nationals.

The position on legal aid in relation to outgoing applications which do not come within the scope of the Brussels or Lugano Conventions is less certain and will be a matter for the law of each individual state given that the New York Convention has no specific provisions concerning the granting of legal aid. However, the convention provides that a transmitting agency may recommend that free legal aid be granted to an applicant. Many countries have systems in place which provide for the processing of applications without cost to the applicant. As regards incoming applications, the position is quite simple. When this Bill is enacted I intend to ensure that free legal aid will be available in all circumstances where the central authority, acting through the Legal Aid Board, is required to engage lawyers. I intend to do this by means of a ministerial policy directive.

Deputy O'Donnell and Deputy Frances Fitzgerald referred to the recommendation of the Second Commission on the Status of Women. That commission made recommendations concerning the enforcement of maintenance orders: that the State institute an automatic enforcement programme prosecuted by the State to ensure payment of maintenance orders and that the Government ratify the Lugano Convention and enact appropriate legislation to extend the reciprocal enforcement of maintenance orders to EFTA countries. The Jurisdiction of Courts and Enforcement of Judgments Act, 1993, which I initiated, gave effect to the recommendation concerning the Lugano Convention. This Bill goes a step further in that it provides administrative assistance to maintenance creditors who wish to avail of the provisions of the Lugano Convention to have their maintenance orders enforced in EFTA countries.

On the enforcement of maintenance orders, the present system is unsatisfactory. The Family Law Bill which is currently before the House is intended to address this problem by strengthening the powers of the court in regard to maintenance. It will be empowered to order lump sum payments as well as periodic payments in all proceedings, to order that payments be secured against the assets of the debtor and to make maintenance orders and attachment of earnings orders in the same proceedings. This should result in a significant improvement in the position. I wil keep that matter under review and will consider further measures that may be necessary to improve the position from to time.

I emphasise that I took on board the recommendations in a book by Mr. Ward referred to by a number of Deputies. I envisage that an attachment of earnings order will become the norm in most maintenance applications where the maintenance debtor is in employment and unless the maintenance debtor is in a position to assure the court initially that any order made will be met without the necessity to have recourse to the earnings of that person.

Deputy McManus referred to the work done by the District Court clerk in her area, and I fully support her comments in that context. I cannot pay a sufficiently high tribute to the work done by all District Court clerks and their staff in the family law area. They are literally the port of call to many women who have been deserted and who experience great difficulties. The support and advice they give and the work they do is remarkable and deserves the appreciation of all of us in this House. They not only provide a court service, they provide a legal aid service, prepare forms, give advice as to people's rights and monitor these matters with great care.

Hear, hear.

It is worthy of note that when orders are made for maintenance under the present system it is open to the court to make an order directing that payments be made not directly by the maintenance debtor to the maintenance creditor but through the District Court office. When that is done a system similar to the Manitoba system, referred to by a number of Deputies, comes into play. District Court clerks and staff carefully monitor these matters and if there is default they ensure that the necessary attachment and enforcement proceedings are automatically instituted. I do not know whether they have computers to assist them, but the system works very effectively.

Deputy McManus and Deputy Frances Fitzgerald referred to the procedure to be followed and the cost of legal representation. Section 4 of the Bill empowers the Minister to appoint a central authority based on the analagous provisions in the Child Abduction and Enforcement of Custody Orders Act, 1991. It will enable the Minister to carry out the function himself, as is the case under the 1991 Act, or to appoint a body other than himself.

Concern was expressed by Deputy Currie, Deputy Durkan and others that red tape would hinder the administration of this system. The central authority system has been well tested in the child abduction area. It has proved very efficient and successful and is devoid of unnecessary red tape. The purpose of this system is to help the maintenance creditor to overcome red tape.

Reference was made to legal aid, and I will not go into detail except to say that the legal aid service has expanded considerably and continues to expand. New centres are being opened this year and, in general, waiting lists are shorter. The private practitioner scheme is also operating very well. More than 900 cases have been dealt under that scheme which has made a major contribution.

I thank the Deputies who contributed to the debate. I agree this Bill is not the be all and end all in regard to maintenance but it is a major step forward and it will be a great help to many people.

Question put and agreed to.
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