Each week, thousands of mothers face the worry of not knowing when court-ordered child maintenance payments are going to arrive, or if they will arrive at all. Their ex-partners can drive their flashy cars, go on loads of holidays, sometimes gamble the money away and often live extravagant lifestyles while the women are forced to take out multiple loans just to pay the mortgage, buy food and pay for fuel. This deliberate non-compliance is basically a malicious form of coercive control and financial abuse but the courts system tends to largely ignore it, especially if you are broke. It is great that the Government has brought in some social welfare updates to help people but we also need real enforcement to tackle the shysters abusing their children in this way, such as automatic deductions at source tied directly to personal public service numbers, PPSNs, Revenue refunds and even assessing inheritance payments, because people get big payouts and no one knows about them. When is the Taoiseach going to bring in the tough enforcement legislation that is needed to make sure people pay up?

I thank the Deputy for raising what is a very important issue. In many instances, he has accurately reflected the experiences of people out there around the volatility or unreliability of child maintenance payments being delivered on and paid. I will talk to the Minister for justice and others in the Department of Social Protection to see what we can do, particularly on automatic deduction at source. These are proposals that have been around for quite some time.