Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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74. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality for an update on the implementation of the recommendations of the review of the enforcement of child maintenance orders. [38098/24]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Review of the Enforcement of Child Maintenance Orders, which was published on 8 January 2024, is one of the actions contained in Goal One of the Family Justice Strategy, that of ‘supporting children’.

The Review was led by my Department and builds on the report of the Child Maintenance Review Group.

The Review notes that the vast majority of parents take their financial and other responsibilities towards their children very seriously. It notes that many parents make private child maintenance arrangements, and that this is the best option and the one to be promoted and encouraged.

However, it notes that there will always be circumstances in which private arrangements are not possible or in which private arrangements breakdown and in these circumstances Government and the courts are tasked with safeguarding the financial welfare of children.

The Review puts forward 26 recommendations focused on generating maximum compliance with child maintenance orders, to ensure security and stability for children and to aid poverty prevention. The recommendations, while mainly focused on strengthening provisions for court enforcement of child maintenance orders, also look at ways to encourage voluntary payment and to assist people to make private arrangements. They focus on improving the way in which maintenance is agreed/ordered, the way in which payment is encouraged, the means by which default can be avoided and greater mechanisms for enforcement.

The key recommendations of the review include:

• Development of a set of child maintenance guidelines.
• Introduction of mandatory mediation information sessions.
• Strengthening attachment of earnings orders and exploring the possibility of attaching an order to a PPS number rather than employing entities, so that orders do not lapse when there is a change in employer.
• Introduction of a single enforcement procedure when the receiving parent makes an enforcement application, allowing the judge to choose the most appropriate enforcement option based on the circumstances of the case.
• Simplification of the bench warrant process.
• Placing the onus on paying parents to pay costs associated with enforcement proceedings.
• Allowing for deductions from social welfare, the paying parent’s bank accounts, from government grants and subsidies and allowing for the recovery of arrears from tax refunds.