FLAC has responded to draft legislation published today by the Department of Justice & Law Reform, the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2010.
It noted that the new bill proposes changes across a wide range of issues including family law, bankruptcy law and the provision of civil legal aid. FLAC is welcoming the proposed changes to the law concerning family maintenance payments. This will bring the law in this area into line with the general regulation of debt collection. According to FLAC, the bill proposes a new process whereby defaulting maintenance debtors will be brought before a judge to explain their failure to pay. FLAC said that callers to their telephone information line and their centres have noted that the gap in the legislation which currently exists is causing hardship.
Commenting on the changes, Noeline Blackwell, Director of FLAC, said that "when this new legislation is enacted, there will be a clear distinction made between those who cannot pay maintenance and those who actively choose not to. Imprisonment will be a sanction for a Judge to impose on those persons who are simply refusing to keep up maintenance payments. On the other hand, those who are experiencing economic difficulties will get a chance to explain this to a court and perhaps have existing orders varied."
While the bill contains some change to bankruptcy law, FLAC said that the small changes proposed were inadequate. According to Ms. Blackwell, "merely setting an outer limit of 20 years on the period during which a person might be bankrupt was entirely insufficient to deal with the real situations of over-indebted people in Ireland today."