Sir, - I would like to ask your readers a question: If we tie a person to a bed and then go around saying this person is lazy because they will not get out of bed, is this fair?
Obviously this would be blatantly unfair. Yet in Ireland today we are constantly saying that, when it comes to single parents or family break-ups, men just walk away. In fact, the court system and the law are actually forcing them away. A single father in this country has absolutely no rights by law to take part in the upbringing of his child.
He has no right to have his name on the birth certificate. He has no right to see his child at any time. He has to go to court to fight to gain access to his children. If he has not got the mother's agreement he loses, usually because the animosity caused by the breakdown of the relationship is carried by both parties into the court. It also seems to be a better moral position for the single mother to bring up the child on her own and for it to look as if the man has rejected the child and not her.
The separated man finds himself in a similar position to that of the single father. He can be thrown out of the family home, whether or not he is the one at fault. He often ends up with the court allowing him to see his children for just a few hours a week. The Children's Bill has had its second reading in the Dail and is now going to the committee stage on Tuesday. I appeal to politicians to remove the ropes that tie fathers down. Give the same rights to fathers and mothers, and if they don't take part in their children's lives, then condemn them. Treat both parents equally. This country is supposed to believe in sexual equality, so let us support equality in the Children's Bill. - Yours, etc.,
PRO, Parental Equality, Dublin.