A forum on the family is to be set up in the New Year to gather public ideas to feed into Government policy.
The consultation project is aimed at assessing ways to support the changing needs of families, according to the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Mary Coughlan.
The forum will begin holding public hearings early in 2003 in several provincial centres, inviting input from families and individuals or groups who work with families.
Details of the composition of the forum and the venues for its hearings have yet to be finalised.
Ms Coughlan said she intended to focus next year on finding "a key role" for her Department in family and family-friendly issues and policy. The issue of families will also be on the agenda when Ireland takes over the EU presidency in early 2004, she added.
"We are going to have a family forum and just go out and meet people who are in families themselves, people who support families be they in the public sector or NGOs [non-governmental organisations] or the voluntary sector," she said.
"There will be between three and five centres which it will go to and invite people to come and talk about what they feel the direction on family policy is and what the issues are for families.
"One of the big things I am trying to get across is the fact that we have such a changing definition of family now. We have a lot of single people who have families for many different reasons; widows, widowers, people who chose to be that way, people who are separated, divorced. There's such a plethora of people out there and I think it's an acceptance of that changing role and looking at what the challenges are."
She pointed to recent excellent research by the Accord agency on counselling and on the effect on children of parental separation by Trinity College Dublin.
"All of that I want to take as a basis and become more pro-active in what I'm going to in the context of family policy and family direction."
A Family Support Agency was recently created which will provide advice to the Minister. She said she had asked the agency to look at the impact of tragedy on families and what the Department could do to try to address it.
"There are serious concerns, especially in my part of the country, [Donegal] about a lot of young men committing suicide, and then we had the recent events in Wexford. So I have asked the agency to prioritise that and I'd like to work on that again and see what supports we need to bring in."
She said she secured €17.29 million for family work in this month's Budget.
"I think it's a very important area because we have a lot of stress in life and a huge amount of stress in families and it leads to other issues like alcohol, drugs, boisterous behaviour, public order problems, complete lack of respect," she added.
Ms Coughlan said she would like to "filter in from the social aspect" to initiatives such as those the the Department of Health is supporting in relation to alcohol and the Department of Justice on public order.