Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has spoken on the Child and Family Relationships Bill in the D\u00e1il.<\/p>\n
Crowe said that while welcoming the Bill, he is concerned with gaps in it, especially in relation to unmarried fathers. He also stated that Sinn F\u00e9in intends to introduce amendments to strengthen the Bill.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is considered the \u2018Family\u2019 in modern Ireland is very different to how it was traditionally viewed when I was growing up and we need radical and inclusive legislation to reflect this new reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cSinn F\u00e9in is welcomes this Bill and recognizes that it will modernize Irish law in relation to children living in many diverse family norms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe share concerns around some of the provisions within this Bill and will seek to amend them in an effort to enhance and make this legislation more inclusive to those who have previously been excluded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not a simple piece of legislation. It has more than 170 sections mainly focusing on extending the guardianship, custody and adoption rights to different types of families.<\/p>\n
\u201cPassing this Bill will mean that many children living in non-marital and non-traditional families will now be in a position to enjoy a legal relationship with the person who provides them with day-to-day parental care, whoever that may be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is welcome, positive, and extremely important.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us have been lobbied by groups representing unmarried fathers, and since my time in office many unmarried fathers and the Tallaght Unmarried Fathers group have visited my constituency office to outline their concerns and frustrations under current legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Bill opened up a golden opportunity to rectify some of the grossly unfair treatment faced by many unmarried fathers in the law, but sadly that issue has been sidelined brushed aside, ignored, left out.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurrently, around 24,000 children are born every year with no legal or statuary relationship with their birth fathers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my experience, many parents initially but mistakenly believe that having a father\u2019s name on a birth certificate gives him guardianship rights. This misinformation and misguided belief has had major adverse consequences for many children and their fathers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne major flaw worry I see is the cohabitation section of this Bill, where a father has to live with the child\u2019s mother for twelve consecutive months, including at least 3 months after child\u2019s birth to become a legal guardian. \u00a0In many cases this is simply not possible and this section doesn\u2019t reflect the reality, especially considering our current housing crisis and high emigration figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing in the Bill for unmarried fathers aside from this cohabiting for the requisite amount of time. For everyone else they will continue to have to resort to the courts if the mother does not agree to sign a statutory declaration for joint guardianship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an area that Sinn F\u00e9in will certainly seek to strengthen and amend in the coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has spoken on the Child and Family Relationships Bill in the D\u00e1il. Crowe said that while welcoming the Bill, he is concerned with gaps in it, especially in relation to unmarried fathers. He also stated that Sinn F\u00e9in intends to introduce amendments to strengthen the Bill. Deputy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[162,64,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adoption","category-children","category-family-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2079"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079\/revisions\/2082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}