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Submission on the Review of Lone Parent Allowance
and One Parent Family Payment Scheme The following report analyses the way that the Department of Social and Family Affairs is operating the Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment schemes where the applicant is Married. Last year we presented a Report - titled, "Brides of the State", which showed how the Department of Social and Family Affairs was using tax payers money to make it more attractive for a women to have a child and be supported by the state rather than marrying the baby's father. (This report is available to download on our website, www.family-men.com) If these two analyses are correct (and they are evidence-based) there is a major problem in the way that these schemes are being operated. In fact the problem identified below in connection with Married couples can be seen to be instrumental in fundamentally undermining Marriage in Ireland and in causing a serious miscarriage of justice in particular cases which will involve massive compensation from the public purse. The law of Marriage is essentially the same today as it was thousands of years ago and can be paraphrased as the solemn vows that the prospective couple make to each other in their wedding ceremony. With only minor variations they promise each other, "to have and to hold from this day forth, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish till death us do part." In practice if something goes terribly wrong and one spouse deserts or otherwise abandons their commitment to the Marriage, the errand spouse can be forced, in law, to support the innocent spouse. The state also plays its part by making welfare payments available to support deserted spouses and their children and by seeking compensation for the public purse from the deserting spouse. That was the situation until 1989. Then common sense and the rulebook were thrown out of the window and feminist-inspired so-called non-judgementalism took its place - all behind closed doors and contrary to the expressed intention of the Oireachtas! This report exposes how, according to the evidence, the then Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Dr Michael Woods turned the moral basis for the laws on desertion upside down and allowed deserting spouses to avail of the One Parent Family Payment and in the process condemned the innocent deserted parent by making them the Liable Relative and Maintenance Debtor. Since that time the state, through the Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment schemes, can be seen to be complicit in the destruction of the fundamental basis on which Marriage is founded. In this way the state has itself initiated the transformation of Irish society into what it is today - a haven for deserters and therefore immoral. And one where the state funds any activity or group which might undermine Marriage. This modest report was compiled within a few weeks to comply with a deadline set by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. As well as attempting to show how the law of Marriage has been corrupted and seriously undermined for the past sixteen years by the Department of Social and Family Affairs the second section provides a poignant account, in the words of one Deserted Married Father, of the impact that the so-called 'non-judgmental' operation of the Scheme has had on families, and stands as a testimony to the hitherto untold human misery being caused by the Department's misguided activities. Brendan Walker Sent by post and e-mail as a .pdf on 20 May 2005 Re: Submission on the Review of Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment Scheme to (i) Steering Group chaired by the Department of the Taoiseach and (ii) the Senior Officials Group on Social Inclusion Dear Mr Walker We note and appreciate that you have extended the deadline by two weeks for presenting our evidence to the above Groups. In view of the fact that, even with this extension we have had only four weeks from the date we received your invitation to prepare a submission, we regret that under the circumstances our assessment of the public impact of the scheme must be brief. However, as Andrew King and I explained to you at the Department’s Seminar in Carrick-on-Shannon last year, the way that the Department of Social and Family Affairs is operating the One Parent Family Payment scheme is far from satisfactory. Indeed our research points to the inevitable conclusion from our analysis that many awards of the One Parent Family Payment under the scheme are illegal and the condemning of a deserted spouse by the Department of Social and Family Affairs to the role of a “liable relative” and “maintenance debtor” is without foundation. If our analysis of the legislative basis and regulations of the Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment Scheme by the Department of Social Welfare is accurate, the way the Schemes are operated by the Department will be shown to be culpable for having committed serious miscarriages of Justice and having interfered with many parent’s Guardianship rights as well as being responsible for the neglect of the welfare of a large number of children. Despite the brief time available we wanted to show the impact of the scheme in two ways: Section 1. We felt there was a need to thoroughly investigate the legal and historical basis for the Scheme in order that we could understand how it was intended to be operated so that we could then clearly indicate the grave shortcomings in the actual day to day working of the Schemes and the potential that exists for legal action to be taken by certain spouses for damages incurred by them and their children as a result of inappropriate implementation of the schemes by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. Section 2. The impact that this improper operation of the Scheme has had on families can be best presented in the words below of one Deserted Married Father, which stand as testimony to the hitherto untold human misery being caused by your Department’s misguided activities.
Section 1. Background to and implementation of the Lone Parent Allowance, One Parent Family Payment schemes and liable relative provisions One of the main requirements of justice is that a law be morally sound in its operation. This derives from the maxim in law that ‘a person must not benefit from their own transgression’ or in other words ‘the defaulter must pay the penalty.’ In family law this is given expression in the laws arising from the liability to maintain one’s dependants of a marriage and in particular relating to Maintenance. A parent who has the duty, in law, to maintain their dependent spouse and/or their children through Marriage and/or Guardianship duties can be forced through the amended Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976 or through the amended Guardianship of Infants Act, 1964 to pay maintenance towards the upkeep of their dependants if it is shown to the satisfaction of the court of law that they had wilfully failed to do so. These laws work on the presumption that the respondent has deserted or otherwise abandoned their duty to maintain their dependants. The law of Ireland is that there is a bar to maintenance being paid where the applicant is shown to be the deserting spouse. As stated by Seamus Wolfe in his annotated notes to the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, 1989 regarding the amended Section 20 (3) which amended the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976, “Desertion is prima facie a bar” to being awarded an order for maintenance. “However, at the time, the court could still make an order where it feels it would be “repugnant to justice” not to do so.” The amended Section 20 (3) of the Judicial Separation and Family Law Reform Act, 1989 states, “The court shall not make an order under section 13, 14, 15 or 16(a) or(b) of this Act for the support of the spouse where the spouse has deserted and has continued to desert the other spouse up to the time of the institution of proceedings for a decree of judicial separation unless, having regard to all the circumstances (including the conduct of the other spouse) the court is of the opinion that it would be repugnant to justice not to make such order or orders.” Section 5 (2) of the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976 was amended to be compatible with this new section of the Act of 1989. However when this section of the Judicial Separation Act was repealed by the Oireachtas in the family reform Act, 1995 it logically must also have struck out the amendment to Section 5 (2) of the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976. That it has not yet been repealed is an anomaly that requires immediate attention. Despite this attempt to ‘fudge’ the law on maintenance it still actually bars a deserter from receiving an award of maintenance WITHOUT A proper TRIAL in a designated court of law TO DETERMINE THE FACTS OF THE CASE. Only a judge in a court of law can overturn the bar on maintenance for a deserter. Legislation relating to Social Welfare follows the same principles of law and we give examples below where Dr Woods, Minister of Social and Family Affairs repeatedly assures the members, when he was introducing new contingency measures and in supplying Written Answers, that the basis of the Lone Parent Allowance and the One Parent Family Payment schemes and the Liable Relative provisions was that the Government were acting in such a way as to look after the “innocent spouse” and were themselves actively seeking out the “deserting spouse” to obtain compensation for the public purse. On the 21 March 1990 in the Dail debate on the Second Stage of the Social Welfare Bill, 1990, Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Woods) Michael J. Woods stated at [758] line 10 at [766] line 7 ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ On 24 November, 1993 in Dáil Éireann in Written Answers Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Woods) Michael J. Woods replied to Mr J. Bruton, T.D. on the question of “Deserting Parents' Maintenance Payments” “The “liability to maintain [409] family” provisions are now contained in Part IX of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1993. These provisions are based on the widely-accepted obligation on people to maintain their spouses and their children. Under the legislation, where a marriage breakdown occurs and a family is dependent on social welfare income maintenance, the person who is liable to maintain that family must contribute to my Department towards the cost of the family's income support. The scheme commenced on 29 November 1990. To date, over 10,000 cases have been examined by my Department. It is not always possible to trace the current whereabouts of deserting spouses; some emigrate, almost all change address ... 410 The present system for tracing deserting spouses is labour intensive and slow. It is planned to periodically review cases which could not be traced in the past on an ongoing basis. Major improvements in the computer systems in my Department currently underway will assist this ongoing review process. I expect that these measures will increase substantially the number of liable relatives making a contribution towards social welfare support for their deserted or separated spouses and their children. Despite these reassurances that the Minister was following the bar on desertion, Minister Woods changed the whole basis of these contingency schemes, out of sight of the Oireachtas and contrary to what he assured them. He was given the task by the Oireachtas of defining, through a Statutory Instrument, the qualifying conditions for an award of Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment. Minister Woods was required to define “separated” in a way that was consistent with the prevailing ‘bar on deserters’ gaining awards of maintenance. Members of the Oireachtas do not get the opportunity to debate or amend Statutory Instruments that a government Minister is required to draw up to ensure the proper operation of statutes brought into law. Members must trust that the Minister so empowered remains faithful to the letter of the law and to the intention of the Oireachtas in their deliberations in making the law. Minister Woods entirely failed to do this and commenced operating the schemes in a “non-judgmental” manner. In the Regulation below made by the Minister for Social Welfare the definition of “A Separated Spouse” fails to disqualify a deserting wife or husband from being granted the One Parent Family Payment (a scheme under the “Lone Parent Allowance Scheme”). SOCIAL WELFARE (CONSOLIDATED PAYMENTS PROVISIONS) (AMENDMENT) (NO. 10) (ONE PARENT FAMILY PAYMENT) REGULATIONS 1996 - REG 6 6 One-parent family payment. CHAPTER 5 79. Definitions. In this Chapter 'liable relative' has the meaning assigned to it in Part IX. 80. Circumstances in which person to be regarded as being a separated spouse. A person is to be regarded for the purposes of Chapter 9 of Part III as being a separated spouse if — (a) she and their children – (i) are not being maintained by
a liable relative, or (b) she and her spouse have lived apart from one another for a continuous period of at least 3 months immediately preceding the date of her claim for one-parent family payment and continue to so live apart, and (c) he makes and continues to make appropriate efforts, in the particular circumstances, to obtain maintenance from a liable relative. Attention was drawn to this irregularity and an assertion was made that it would bring the law into serious disrepute by Mr J. O’Keefe, T.D. in the Dail on 7 March 1989 during the debate of the Second Stage of the Social Welfare Bill, 1989 . Minister for Social Welfare (Dr. Woods) Michael J. Woods failed to act on this information. Mr O’Keefe at [2516] line 6 is quoted as, The Minister assured Deputy O’Keefe that this would be attended to in Committee. It never was. In fact this deception of the Oireachtas by his Department, initiated in 1989/90, continues to this day. The Department’s only attempt at a justification for this corruption of the intent of the Oireachtas is given in the Department’s Review of the One Parent Family Payment Scheme undertaken as part of the Department’s Expenditure Review Programme within the Strategic Management Initiative. Executive Summary, page ii 4. In 1990 the Lone Parent’s Allowance (LPA) was introduced. The new scheme was, for the first time, open to both men and women; lone parents who had separated from their spouses no longer had to prove desertion in order to qualify for a payment. 7. The OFP has two main objectives • The relief of hardship where a lone parent has not secured adequate or any maintenance from his/her spouse or the other parent of the child. • To support and encourage lone parents to consider employment as an alternative to long term welfare dependency while at the same time supporting them to remain in the home if that is their wish. In addition, it aims to ensure that • Lone parents are treated in a fair and equitable manner without regard to gender or the circumstances in which they became lone parents. • Lone parents can easily assess the implications of taking up employment or training. • Where possible the cost of any support given to lone parents from the other parent of the child/ren is recovered. Uniform Treatment of Lone Parents 6.19 As outlined in Chapter 3, the OFP is the latest in the development of lone parent schemes which has seen provision for lone parents move from a situation where they were provided for under a number of different schemes (such as Unmarried Mother’s Allowance, Deserted Wife’s Allowance) to one scheme catering for all. The thinking underlying this development is that the income support needs of lone parents and their children are basically the same and the reason for becoming a lone parent is irrelevant. In effect, the scheme focuses on lone parenthood as a contingency that requires income support and is not judgmental in the way that, for instance, the deserted wives schemes were in that recipients had to prove they were deserted in order to qualify for a payment. By this they decided that they would no longer seek a determination of whether the applicant for Lone Parent Allowance or One Parent Family Payment had actually been deserted. This leaves the Department of Social and Family Affairs in the position that for the past 15 years it has been making awards under the Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment schemes to any parent who presents themselves and some children to the Department and asks for it without any worries about the fact that the parent may be, themselves, the deserter - the defaulter in the marriage. It would appear that the Department of Social and Family Affairs is breaking the law on desertion and its own qualifying conditions for the Lone Parent Allowance or One Parent Family Payment schemes if there is evidence of any of the following documentation:
Another problem is that married women, when being in desertion, are in “unauthorised possession” of the children of the marriage. The basic rules of the Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment is that the applicant must be bringing up children without the support of the other parent. The Department of Social and Family Affairs makes no effort whatsoever to seek validation of whether the parent is actually bringing up children without the support of the other parent. The award of the One Parent Family Payment can also be shown to be prejudicial to the making of other Family Law orders. Where a spouse declares an award of the One Parent Family Payment to a Court of Law, by way of an affidavit of means or during proceedings the Court must presume that the Department of Social and Family Affairs has applied the legislation in a Constitutionally proper manner and presumes that the award of the One Parent Family Payment was a “just” award and made to the “innocent” party. The truth is however that the Department of Social and Family Affairs makes no formal efforts to even ascertain the status of the other spouse and whether they are the ‘innocent party’ or have given their ‘permission’ for the children to be taken from the family home. In the avoidance of seeking any validation of the status of the applicant there will undoubtedly be many instances where the Department of Social and Family Affairs will also be shown to be in the position of criminally aiding and abetting the unauthorised possession of the children by the parent who is least capable of attending to the children’s moral welfare. In cases where the Department of Social and Family Affairs makes an award after it has been given evidence from the other spouse that the applicant is a deserter and/or that they themselves are being prevented by the applicant in sharing the duties of rearing the children, the Department is in breach of its own regulations and qualifying conditions (that the applicant must be bringing up children without the support of the other parent) as well as interfering without authority into the Marriage. Recently the current Minister of Social Welfare, Mr Ahern is quoted in the media as considering the relaxation of the bar on cohabiting as a qualifying condition for the One Parent Family Payment. This bar already discriminates against heterosexual couples as a Same-sex couple can never live together “as man and wife”. Any relaxation of the bar on cohabiting will, in many instances, where the cohabiting couple are in fact both parents of the child that is part of the award of One Parent Family Payment eliminate the original reason for the introduction of the Lone Parent Allowance scheme, which was to support a parent bringing up a child without the support of the other parent. More importantly it will overnight eradicate Marriage as the financial incentives will massively accrue to co-habiting whilst claiming One Parent Family Payment with the loss of the payment being a serious disincentive to marry. This is plainly not in the Common Good and unconstitutional. The position of the National Mens Council of Ireland is quite clear and concurs with that of Article 41 of Bunreacht Na hÉireann. We believe that Marriage is the best arrangement within which to bring up children and that it is the duty of the state to guard the institution of Marriage and defend it from attack. The current operation of the Lone Parent Allowance and One Parent Family Payment schemes plainly are repugnant to the Constitution and must be reviewed immediately and amended to ensure that Marriage is not undermined by the immoral and illegal award of public funds to a deserter and the concomitant punishment of the innocent spouse and children through the application of the Department’s liable relative provisions. Further reference to the position of the National Mens Council of Ireland can be found at our website, www.family-men.com. ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ Section 2. An interview with a Deserted Married Father. Q. 1 How is life for you just now? My children were taken away from me by their mother over four years ago. I have not seen them since. Over the past four years I have tried to get help to deal with this problem. On the understanding that I had rights as a parent. I went to the Legal Aid Board and another solicitor. I soon realised that they were acting against me and my children. I also went to the Health Board and Garda Siochana because I thought they would care about my children and about child abuse. Neither the Health Board nor the Gardai wanted the problem and sent me to the Courts. The District Court ignored me and would only listen to my wife so I went to the Irish Human Rights Commission believing that they were interested in protecting the Human Rights of my children and my self. They wasted my time for over a year by writing me hugely complex letters asking unanswerable questions so that they could find an excuse not to help me and my children.My TD claimed at first that he was concerned about his constituents getting a fair hearing in the Courts but in fact he did nothing. This has involved me in writing thousands and thousands of pages of correspondences. Not one of these state agencies or public representatives has ever done anything to help my children or me. Since the children were taken I have not had any real time to spend in working to build a future for them. The opposite has happened. My health has suffered terribly; I have been physically ill and even been in hospital as a result of the distress that the situation is causing me. To help anybody imagine what this is like, if anybody has ever lost their children in a busy shopping centre for one minute, they will know the anxiety this causes. This level of anxiety has been felt constantly for four years now. Q. 2 How did this all start? My wife deserted me in May of 2000. She told me she didn’t like being co-dependent. She found Married life too restricting on what she called her “personal freedom”. She said she wanted to be “independent”, to “have her own money” and “her own house.” Her conscience did not appear to be troubled in breaking the solemn promise that she had made to bring our children up together. However, after she left she made no attempt to actually support herself. She knew from the One Parent Family Payment Guide that after three months of living away from me that she would be able to get money for herself by making a claim. I struggled under these awful circumstances to keep the family functioning and continued to provide the children with the stable home environment and good wholesome food which they always had from me. Even though my wife had left me claiming that she wanted to be independent she insisted on taking money from me and using the facilities in the home when it suited her. Keeping the children feeling secure was made incredibly difficult as they had to experience my wife entering into successive loose sexual relationships with other men who she made act as surrogate fathers to the children to create competition with me and push me out as a father. As soon as the three month qualifying period was up, my wife , out of the blue, took our two small children and presented them to the Community Welfare Officer. She lied to the officer. She told her that I had not been looking after the children and that she’d had no money from you to feed her and the children for four months. The Community Welfare Officer was willing to believe every word that my wife said. This Officer abused and insulted me, accusing me of depriving my children of food and money for four months. This was glaringly untrue since the children were well fed and in good health. The Officer had the indisputable evidence of her own eyes to refute my wife's ridiculous claim of starvation. Q 3. Did the Community Welfare Officer give you an opportunity to present your side of the story? No, she believed everything my wife had said and wouldn’t believe the obvious truth that I had been feeding and caring for the children as i had always done. Q 4. What happened next? The Community Welfare Officer apparently arranged to visit my wife’s residence. My wife contrived to take the children from me to have them with her for the visit on that day. The Community Welfare Officer then told me that she had decided that the children were living with my wife on the basis that she had seen them with her once in her office and once at my wife’s residence. From that time on the Community Welfare Officer began making supplementary welfare payments to my wife for which I understand, at that point, I became a “liable relative” and a “Maintenance Debtor.” Apart from my wife showing the children to the Community Welfare Officer to make her money I continued to be the main carer for the children. Q 5. Did you have an opportunity to appeal against the decision made by the Community Welfare Officer to take over your role as a parent and to appeal against your newly acquired status as a “Maintenance Debtor”? No and I was not informed of any such process being in existence. Q 6. How did things develop after that? My wife became seriously ill and the children continued to live with and be cared by me without any help from anybody. This went on for months. The Community Welfare Officer continued to pay my wife even though the children were living with me and my wife was staying with another man and not at the address she was claiming from. I couldn’t go to work yet I did not receive any financial support for the children during this time. One day just before Christmas of 2000 my wife burst into our home, grabbed the children’s clothes and bundled the children into a waiting car. She wouldn’t tell me where she was taking them. I found out later that she took them to a nearby town and was later given private rented accommodation by the same Community Welfare Officer. My wife and the children disappeared completely and the children were not home for Christmas and I heard nothing for a couple of months. Then I got a letter in January from a Legal Aid Board solicitor asking me if I would agree to my wife deserting and if i would consent to a Separation Agreement that would involve the continued Joint Custody of the children. I later realised that this letter was her attempt to appear to be meeting the qualifying condition set by the Department which required her to show she was involved in “structured negotiations” regarding the Custody and Maintenance of the children. I then got a letter in February from a Social Welfare Inspector telling me that my wife had made a claim for a One Parent Family Payment and that he would be visiting me. During the visit he told me that I was, myself,entitled to make a claim for the One Parent Family Payment but that I wouldn’t get anything. He also told me that because my family’s legal affairs were not sorted out that he would recommend that my wife’s claim be refused. A year later my wife revealed that she was in fact being paid the One Parent Family Payment. The family's affairs had not been attended to. At no time had I consented to the children living with her away from the family home. Q.7 So no one informed you that your wife was being paid the money? No. Q.8 And your understanding, from the Social Welfare Inspector, was that she wasn’t entitled to the money? That’s what I was told. I wanted my children to be returned home so that I could continue to look after them. The letter I got from the Social welfare Inspector made no reference to any process by which I could appeal against this award to her. Q. 9 Since that time have you found out any of the actual regulations that are supposed to determine what the Social Welfare people can do and can’t do? Yes. Since I found that the state agencies were not going to help me I’ve had to look for an alternative way to protect my Family. I had to try to discover what the Social Welfare Department and the Health Board thought gave them the right to do this to my Family. So I started to look at the real law and the regulations. The One Parent Family Payment is supposed to be a benefit for parents bringing up a child without the support of a partner through no fault of their own. As I said before I have never been approached by the Social Welfare Department to ask me specifically if I had abandoned my responsibilities toward my children. The truth is plainly that my wife is obstructing me from carrying out those responsibilities. The "qualifying conditions" for an award of this pension are: 1. That my wife had the "main care and charge" of our children. “Charge” is a legal term. A person has “Charge” of a child where they are given that “charge” by the person who has “Custody” of the child. I had not given my wife the main care and charge of our children. 2. That my wife make "appropriate efforts" to "get maintenance" for herself and the children. The One Parent Family Payment scheme has recently done away with the requirement that a claimant prove desertion by their spouse. The current legislation in Ireland regarding maintenance of spouses is contained in the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children Act) 1976. The law is based on the concept of "Family Default". Under this law a deserting spouse, such as my wife, cannot be entitled to a maintenance payment. My wife as the deserter and defaulter in the family is not even entitled to make an application to a Court of law under this Act; this duty being entrusted only to me, the innocent spouse. My wife can never fulfil this qualification. In fact I must assume that my wife supplied the department with the absolute proof of her desertion and invalidity to receive the One Parent Family Payment if she showed them evidence of her attempts to get Maintenance. At no stage of any legal process or proceedings has my wife attempted to claim maintenance for herself as she is obliged to under the qualifying conditions for the One Parent family Payment. Thus she has utterly failed to demonstrate that she is without the support of her partner through no fault of her own. I’ve also looked at the application form for the One Parent Family Payment. On it the term "maintenance" is defined, contrary to the legal meaning, to be simply "income". I must conclude from this that, even though legally my deserting wife has forfeited her rights by her desertion, if I were to give her some money this “income” would be sufficient ‘proof’ for the Social Welfare Department as a qualifying condition of her getting the One Parent Family Payment. It appears from this that the Department is aware of this corruption of the legal position as it also states on the form that the terms used are “not legal terms”. In this way the Department apparently is keen to pay benefits to deserters to which the Department are aware they are not legally entitled to. My research has also revealed that Section 316 (contributions towards benefit or allowance) of the "Liable Relative" provisions - Part X of the Social Welfare Act of 1989 - is applicable where there has been a payment of a Deserted Wife's Benefit, a Deserted Wife's Allowance, or a Deserted Husband's Allowance or Supplementary Welfare where a person is entitled to these benefits Over the course of time these are nearly all replaced by the so-called "non-judgmental" One Parent Family Payment Scheme. Despite the Department claiming this payment is “Non-judgmental” because they no longer seek proof of desertion, the reality as can be seen by my situation is that by awarding the One Parent Family Payment they are being entirely “judgmental” to me and my children, as they are condemning me as a “Maintenance Debtor” and depriving my children of my love, guidance and support. The "Liable Relative" provision was brought into law on the strict understanding that it would be applied only in cases of desertion. The use of this provision and the involvement of the "Liable Relative Section" regarding claims for One Parent Family Payment, and the subsequent intimidation and harassment of deserted husbands, appears to be completely illegal. Q. 10 Under these terrible circumstances what do you see as your prospects for the future? I understand that my name will have been recorded with the "Liable Relative" section of the Dept. of Social Welfare. I will be listed as a "maintenance debtor". If I ever find time to earn an income again after years spent working desperately to protect my children – who appear to be lost in an endless legal and bureaucratic labyrinth – I will be expected to "make a contribution" towards the illegal payments that the Dept. has been making to my wife. If I don't comply with their demands they will bring a civil action against me in the Courts. If I don't comply with a Court order I will be imprisoned as a criminal! I am registered as a "maintenance debtor". As such, with no available hope of appealing against this arbitrary decision, I am held in Debt Bonded Slavery by my wife and the Social Welfare Dept. My wife can receive this "non-judgmental" pension apparently beyond the coming to maturity of my children, in fact for the rest of her life, and I will be expected to "contribute” whilst she lives. Any Civil Legal action I have taken has been prejudiced by the involvement of the "liable'' relative section and any action I may take in the future will be similarly prejudiced. In the view of the Court with the knowledge that my wife was in receipt of the One Parent Family Payment I was deemed a "maintenance debtor". As a parent with Custodial authority my wife’s possession of the children without my consent was unauthorised. The award of the One Parent Family Payment by the Department to her however has had the effect of covering up the abuse that was going on and at the same time prejudicing my position by apparently showing that she already had in some way “the blessing of the state” in her possession of the children and therefore condemning me of the crime of apparently abandoning my own children and “failing to maintain them.” Q. 11 Can you sum up how this One Parent Family Payment scheme has affected your Family? My wife was enticed by its easy availability to desert me and steal my children so that she could exploit them for money. Not only does it entice, but it also throws it's victims into an adversarial legal system that causes such bitterness that there is little likelihood of my Family surviving this experience. The initiation of a legal process by my wife exactly coincided with her claim for One Parent Family Payment. Since that time and because of her award of the claim any hope of a reconciliation of our Marriage has seriously curtailed . The state has replaced my position in the Family and I have been separated from my children as a direct result ever since that time.
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