I want to formally second the amendment by Senator Ruane to the Order of Business to propose that the Child Maintenance Bill 2026 be taken before No. 1. This Bill has been an incredible and rigorous piece of work spanning almost three Oireachtas terms. I have watched as Senator Ruane has engaged with the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, and all the relevant stakeholders. In the last term, we had full support from the women's caucus right across the Oireachtas for this measure. We hear time and again about the importance of lone parents and the fact that many single parent-headed households are in consistent poverty. The figures there are always much higher in terms of homelessness and poverty, including in our wealth surveys. Situations where one parent ends up effectively doing the majority of the parenting come up time and again. One thing we hear about is the maintenance payments. In fact, they have in many cases become a penalty, with people having their social welfare payments reduced because they are theoretically getting maintenance payments that were ordered towards them. We have heard about all of those problems.

What Senator Ruane came up with and has worked on for years in incredible detail is a mechanism and tool that can and will work. It has a calculation tool in it. We have heard an indication now from the Government that it is looking at a calculation tool that seems to be quite similar in some senses to the very detailed and fair calculation tool developed by Senator Ruane with the legal experts. Crucially, though, the Minister for justice's proposal seems to be locating it in the justice system. It would, therefore, be back in that adversarial space in the family courts whereas what Senator Ruane is doing would locate it in Revenue, as we have seen in other jurisdictions. We would have Revenue assessing what is fair in terms of contributions and maintenance payments.

It is important that the women's caucus previously supported this Bill. It would be really positive if we saw, as we did in that previous term, that same cross-party commitment to moving forward on an issue that has a really important gender equality dimension to it. I am very proud to second the proposed amendment. I commend Senator Ruane on the work she has done to bring it to this point. I strongly encourage cross-party support for something that really could make a difference and work.

Hear, hear.