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MORE THAN 16,000 lone parents are to benefit from what government are calling “landmark reforms” to the state’s child maintenance system.
The reforms will mean a single parent will no longer be required to go to court to seek child maintenance and the payments will be excluded from the social welfare means test.
Lone parents will also no longer be required to provide evidence that they have made effort to request payment from the non-resident parent first, when claiming the one parent family payment or the jobseeker’s transitional payment.
Minister for Social Protection Heather Humphreys today said the reforms aim to reduce stress on behalf of lone parents while also reducing the burden on the courts system to get the cases resolved.
The changes, announced by the minister today, also detail that the Department of Social Protection will no longer seek to recoup claim costs from the non-resident parent.
These reforms will open up the system to even more lone parents, while those who already receive payments will see an increase. The total cost of the reforms will amount to €10 million per year.
Humphreys today said she used to witness lone parent households receive their payment some weeks, while other weeks it was missed.
She said that the the person that “suffers most in that situation is the child. And I don’t want to see that happen”.
The department, however, maintained that these changes do not replace or supersede the responsibility of parents to maintain their own children.
These reforms were based on recommendations that were included in an earlier report the child maintenance review group, published in November 2022.
As previously reported by The Journal, the report noted that in Ireland child maintenance is seen largely as a personal, parental obligation and therefore a matter of private family law.
“There is no state agency with responsibility for child maintenance payments and pursuit of maintenance is left up to the claiming parent on behalf of their child,” it said.
A previous survey by One Family in 2016 on shared parenting found that the most common financial problem identified by respondents was non-existent or insufficient child maintenance payments.
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Weekly Islamic terror attacks which target Western nations and Christian communities in the Arab world. Thank your local multi cult liberal. They were warned time and time again, but nope they wouldn’t listen. They always have and will continue to stick their fingers in their ears, and scream racist at any opposition to the open border liberal agenda.
Was only thinking this yesterday but does Grafton street even have any bollards to prevent a truck from mowing down pedestrians? From my knowledge I don’t think it does. I know the threat level here is not likely but it wouldn’t hurt to put something in place.
@Greg Cavey:
That would need some forward thinking on behalf of our politicians etc, they are not exactly known for that in fairness.
Both Grafton and Henry St have easy access from main roads with heavy traffic, no bollards as far as I’m aware either, a disaster waiting to happen.
@CatManDo: all religion poisons the minds of mankind.
@Greg Cavey: people over here were convinced the threat was almost non existent up til friday.
I think he should do life in Uzbekistan not Sweden. Swedish jail would be too nice for him.
@Catmando…Well said Cat, accurate and perfectly captures the reality. These guys will look back in years to come and wonder just why it was so easy take over Europe.
Then they will recall actually being invited in…in their droves…
Someone needs to asked the Swedish Police why was the terrorist not detained and deported when his residency application was rejected in the first place.
The knife Jihad that occurred in an IKEA store in Sweden 2015, well that terrorist faced deportation too.
@Lepanto: Not the polices fault. Fault lies with the govt. The policy is to tell people they are being deported weeks before they are! So most run away (well duh) when the police arrive on the date set by migration, they are long gone. head of Migration has a lot to answer for. Same idiot who let I thousands of people unchecked 2 years ago.
@iMoan Brutal: yeah I think a late night raid would be a better job and the satisfaction of ripping the Tossers from they’re beds and landing them
On the next plane to whatever dive they came from.
Go dtachtóidh an diabhal é.
Perhaps it’s harse but anyone on a police watch list for Jahadi sympathies….Who is a asylum seeker and not a EU citizen should be deported immediately…..France has several thousand such peoole they should all be deported…If needed their home muslim countries should be paid to take them back….
Trump is a genius with very special foresight. Didn’t he say a month or so back “did you see what happened in Sweden last night”?
have your say