Court Orders
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Teresa Costello (FF), Agricultural Panel

I thank the Minister for being here today. In 2024, the previous Minister published the review of the enforcement of child maintenance orders. There were 26 recommendations grouped under three approaches, a consensus-based approach, a compliance-based approach and a deterrence-based approach. I acknowledge the Minister's work on the matter of child maintenance and efforts on the implementation of these guidelines.
Every day, in every room we sit in, chances are we are in the company of a parent raising children or a child without any form of maintenance being paid to them by the other parent. That is a disgrace. It is indefensible for someone not to be willing to step up and own their responsibility by financially providing for a child they have brought into this world is indefensible. Child maintenance is not a bonus or a luxury used to get your hair done, go on holiday or buy a car. It is not optional. It is a legal and moral responsibility to ensure that children that you have brought into this world have their needs met and are provided for. Anyone raising children knows it costs money to meet their needs. Children do not survive on fresh air.
If a parent does not pay maintenance, what happens? The answer is often "very little." The parent who should be receiving the payment must go back to court repeatedly, at their own expense, taking time off work, arranging childcare and reliving conflict, all while the child, who, I repeat, was brought into the world by two parents, continues to go without. Compare this with how we collect taxes, fines or social welfare overpayments. Those systems work efficiently, with money tracked, payments enforced and consequences that are real. When it comes to child maintenance, however, which is money that directly affects children's well-being, there is no automatic follow-up and no assumption that a missed payment is urgent.
To recover arrears through the District Court, a parent must complete detailed applications, file multiple copies, arrange personal service of documents, swear statutory declarations, meet strict deadlines and attend court hearings, often repeatedly. Any small mistake can delay the case or cause it to be struck out entirely, forcing the parent to start again from the beginning.
If the paying parent is employed, an attachment of earnings order may be sought. If that parent is self-employed, unemployed or evasive, enforcement becomes even more difficult. Even when non-payment is proven, outcomes can include adjournments, variations of the order or further delays, while arrears continue to grow and children continue to go without. Other countries that have centralised child maintenance service agencies that calculate payments collect them and enforce them automatically. These systems reduce conflict, ensure consistency and, most importantly, put children first.
We need a system that recognises child maintenance as essential rather than optional, one that enforces responsibility fairly and consistently, and stops forcing parents to fight the same battle repeatedly just to secure what their children are entitled to. This is the heart of the problem. The system relies on persistence rather than protection. It rewards delay, avoidance and non-compliance, while exhausting the parent who is already carrying the financial and emotional load.
Child maintenance should not depend on how resilient or legally confident a parent is. It should be enforced consistently, efficiently and automatically. Child maintenance is about dignity, stability and fairness. Our children deserve a better system than one that looks the other way. It is time we fixed it.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-01-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-21