asked the Minister for Social Welfare whether a wife who is separated from her husband under the terms of a deed of separation which provides for weekly maintenance payments to be paid by the husband to her is entitled to the deserted wife's allowance if the husband ceases to make maintenance payments and cannot be compelled by the courts to do so; and, if she is not so entitled, if he will amend the deserted wife's allowance scheme to enable wives in such circumstances to claim the allowance.

The regulations governing the deserted wife's schemes provide that a woman is to be regarded as having been deserted by her husband if, (a) he has of his own volition left her, (b) he wilfully refuses or neglects to contribute to her support and maintenance, (c) she has made and continues to make reasonable efforts to trace his whereabouts and to prevail on him to contribute to her support and maintenance.

Where a separation agreement is entered into, and there is no question of desertion by the husband prior to the agreement, the parties would be held to have separated by mutual consent. In such circumstances desertion does not arise and the woman would not be entitled to payment as a deserted wife.

The suggestion of the Deputy would alter fundamentally the nature of the scheme administered by my Department for deserted wives and a situation would arise where my Department would be expected to assume responsibility where a maintenance agreement freely entered into by both parties lapsed for one reason or another.

I do not propose on the basis of the hypothetical situation quoted by the Deputy to alter the basic conditions of the scheme specifically designed for wives who have been deserted. The scheme of supplementary welfare allowances would be available to a person suffering hardship arising from the circumstances described by the Deputy.

Would the Minister indicate precisely what he regards section (c) as covering from the point of view of one spouse making reasonable efforts to trace the other? Would he agree a considerable number of deserted wives are refused the allowance on the ground that they do not make sufficient effort to trace the other spouse? What would he regard as sufficient effort? Notifying the Garda?

As far as I can gather, the inquiry officer interviewing the applicant generally seeks a statement — not a sworn statement — as to the efforts on her part to contact her husband, to ensure a maintenance order has been taken out by her, and that there was failure on her part to contact him because of total unawareness of his existing residence. In that case he would be deemed to have deserted her. But desertion as a criterion for eligibility inevitably must have a degree of subjective assessment by the officer concerned and in many cases not all the information essential is readily available.

Is the Minister aware that in quite a number of desertion cases it is virtually impossible for the spouse to carry out the search as suggested by the Minister in that many of the spouses go to another jurisdiction? Would he agree that in the meantime the investigating officer should give immediately the benefit of the doubt to the applicant and certainly go so far as to arrange full supplementary welfare allowance until such time as the decision is taken? Is he aware that quite a number of deserted wives find it impossible to comply satisfactorily with the requirements of the investigating officer in so far as section 3 is concerned and would he advise investigating officers to be more flexible in their dealings in these matters?

I am not casting any reflection on either Deputy but this is a classic example of how Questions are getting out of hand. Deputy Shatter asked a specific question, whether a breach of a deed of separation constituted desertion and the Minister answered "no", but then we got into extraneous matters that are not touched on in the question at all and we could spend a half an hour on them.

I appreciate the Ceann Comhairle's point of view but the Ceann Comhairle will understand that a question such as this is relevant to circumstances that exist today and is very beneficial in making information available to applicants who have had difficulty in this regard. The Ceann Comhairle has been very generous in allowing a certain amount of flexibility in supplementary questions and replies which can be of enormous benefit by way of information to the general public and that is the reason I ask him to be generous in respect of this question.

If I were the Deputy who put down Question No. 523 I would be very angry with the Ceann Comhairle. It looks as if it will never be reached.

Question No. 523 is about a telephone service. I am sure the Deputy who put down the question is concerned about the matter we are dealing with.

I picked the wrong one.

Would the Minister agree that it is time to reconsider and broaden the concept of desertion to cover situations such as this and, indeed, other situations where it may be necessary for the wife or the husband to tell the spouse to leave because of the conditions they are living under, that the concept of desertion should be widened to include such cases?

It may not be widely known that where a husband behaves in such a way as to force his wife to leave him because, for instance, of violence, habitual drunkness or cruelty on his part the wife is regarded as being deserted because of being forced to leave. In the case of a wife having a barring order against her husband forbidding him access to the house, that also would be regarded as constructive desertion. If there is mutual separation and mutual agreement, I would hold the view, and I am sure the Deputy would also hold the view, that there was an obligation on his part to provide maintenance for her.

Is the Minister aware that a number of women who apply for deserted wife's allowance have no income other than perhaps supplementary welfare and are not in a position to sue the husband for maintenance, even with free legal aid, which is not always readily available? Would the Minister consider a suggestion that the Department of Social Welfare should help out in such cases and take steps to recover the money thereafter?

Every action is taken on our part where, for example, we have reason to believe that the husband may be claiming social welfare in respect of his wife and giving the wife no money or very little money. We can take action in that regard. In a case where the husband leaves home to live with another woman or another person, the wife is elegible for deserted wife's allowance. The criteria are quite broad but do not extend to maintenance agreements of a separation agreement nature.

Do they ever take action against the husband where they are paying deserted wife's allowance?

The Department take pretty rigorous action.

On a specific point, there is a case of which I am personally aware, where a wife in her innocence informed the investigating officer that she had told the husband to get out and has been refused the allowance.

That is a correct refusal.

It is not a correct supplementary question. It is a separate question.

9.