Court Orders
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir Costello as an gceist a chur. Is ceist fíorthábhachtach í do na tuismitheoirí, go háirithe tuismitheoirí os comhair ár gcúirteanna.
I thank Senator Costello for raising this important issue. The issues the Senator has identified clearly reflect the importance of child maintenance and of receiving child maintenance and the significance attached to being a parent. As she indicated, my Department carried out a review of enforcement of child maintenance orders. The review, which was completed two years ago, on 8 January 2024, made 26 recommendations.
The key recommendations required the development of a set of child maintenance guidelines, the introduction of mandatory mediation information sessions for child maintenance applications, the strengthening of attachment of earnings orders and exploring the possibility of attaching an order to a personal public services, PPS, number rather employing entities. Also, there was the proposal to introduce a single enforcement procedure when the receiving parent makes an enforcement application. This would allow the judge to choose the most appropriate enforcement option. It was also recommended that there be simplification of the bench warrant process and that the onus be placed on paying parents to pay costs associated with enforcement proceedings. Finally, it was recommended that there be a provision put in place for deductions from social welfare, the paying parent's bank accounts and Government grants and subsidies, and allowing for the recovery of arrears from tax refunds.
An interdepartmental group was then established in February 2024. It was tasked with the responsibility of setting a series of child maintenance guidelines for use by all parties on a voluntary basis and with the development of an online calculator to help determine fair child maintenance payments.
The objectives of the child maintenance guidelines include: establishing consistent, fair and predictable amounts of maintenance for children whose parents are not together; increasing transparency; reducing conflict and tension between parents since they will know what the appropriate payment should be; and reducing the number of child maintenance applications made to the courts in order to ensure consistent treatment of parents and children in similar circumstances.
In April 2025, the child maintenance guidelines committee conducted a survey-based consultation to get the views of the public. I am pleased to inform the Cathaoirleach and Senator Costello that on Monday last, I published Ireland's first set of child maintenance guidelines along with the report relating to the public consultation. The aim behind the published guidelines is to improve fairness, consistency and transparency and reduce conflict when parents are making child maintenance arrangements. The guidelines will be voluntary for parents and can also be used voluntarily by the courts. The courts will find them of great assistance.
I will shortly launch the innovative new online child maintenance calculator, which will help parents to make private arrangements directly where possible and appropriate. In line with another recommendation in the review, my Department undertook a social media campaign in October 2025 to reinforce the importance of paying child maintenance orders. As a number of recommendations in the review will require legislative changes, work on examining those changes is taking place within my Department. Officials in the Department are liaising with other organisations and bodies to implement the other recommendations in the review, which I outlined and which, I know, Senator Costello wants to see implemented. As a large proportion of civil justice proceedings relate to family law, it is important that we have a consistent and transparent method of making child maintenance calculations in order that people will not have to go through the process of very complicated applications in court and will know that there is a procedure available for them to be objectively and fairly calculated.

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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