500 signatures reached
To: Minister Leo Varadkar
Protect Lone Parents
We are calling for Minister Leo Varadkar to either:
1) Ensure non custodial parents are obliged to pay maintenance for their children.
or
2) Remove the obligation to seek maintenance as a condition for receiving the payment.
Can you sign the petition today?
Why is this important?
This is simply unfair. Lone parents are being forced in to an impossible situation where they have to seek maintenance from non custodial parents, or risk having their payments cut. But, get this - at the same time the Department of Social Protection has told non custodial parents, that they don’t have to pay.
This is placing an unfair burden on lone parents who have to seek maintenance from the other parent. Domestic abuse survivors have to choose to suffer a financial loss or make contact with their abuser. A lone parent without an address can not issue legal proceedings and can not comply with the condition. These are just some examples of the countless ways that this oversight by the department is making lone parents suffer.
Many lone parents have lost child maintenance after the Department of Social Protection wrote to non custodial parents, it is unfair for the department to now threaten these same parents because of their own legislative error.