Some 5,500 individuals in the Republic (97.8 per cent of whom are male) were registered as "untraceable" last year by the Maintenance Recovery Unit (MRU) of the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs. It seems that would be a high enough number to give the Garda cause for concern, but the Department of Justice says it's not its responsibility.

"What we mean by untraceable," says Patricia Molloy, assistant principal in the Pensions Services Office in Sligo, with responsibility for the Maintenance Recovery Unit, "is that the man (usually) has left his wife and she has told us she doesn't know where he is. She might say he's gone abroad". Sometimes he may have created a new identity or simply become lost in the black economy, says Molloy. The Department - under the Minister, Dermot Ahern - believes most of the "untraceable liable" have gone abroad, usually to Britain. The Department checks the individual out on its computer system database, looks for an address to coincide with his RSI number or date of birth, and interviews him if he is tracked down.

It is when a person applies for the One Parent Family Allowance that the MRU swings into action. As a result, it comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, and the Health Boards. It was established nine years ago on the back of the "Social Welfare Act, 1989" to pursue, where necessary, earning fathers who wish to avoid their liability to maintain financially partners and children.

Its primary function is to save the Exchequer from doling out welfare payments by tracking down the responsible relatives and exacting sums from them instead. Among the increased powers the Act granted to the MRU was the right to inspect employers' and employees' financial documents. Refusal to comply with the MRU's requests can result in fines of between £1,000 and £10,000. Or imprisonment.

In 1997, the Maintenance Recovery Unit recouped £676,000, an increase of £208,000 on what it collected in 1996. However, the number of liable relatives also increased by 2,800. A further 500 names above the previous year's figure were added to the "untraceable" list.

There are currently 22,000 claimants of One Parent Family Allowance who have been reviewed by the Department with relatives who are liable to financially maintain them. But 46 per cent of those who are obliged by law to give monetary support are themselves on social welfare and, therefore, not in a position to contribute.

With 5,500 untraceable, of the remaining 6,357, 1,232 aren't in a position to contribute anything mainly because their income level was deemed too low by the MRU. Some 994 have been served a "determining order", an assessment of incomings and outgoings which establishes how much an individual might justifiably be expected to hand over; 479 of these are paying.

A further 140 of the cases served "determining orders" are now no longer liable to contribute either because the One Parent Family Payments have been terminated for a variety of reasons or he is no longer in a position to contribute, says Patricia Molloy. The most common reason for this situation arising is that the claimant is married to a new partner, co-habitating with one or has found work - or the liable relative has died. The other 3,467 of those who have been located are in the process of being examined.

The MRU is not unlike the Child Support Agency in Britain which was set up by the Margaret Thatcher-led Conservative government of the late 1980s though, as Liam Walsh, assistant principal in the Planning Unit of the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs points out, there are major differences.

The Irish authorities seem to take a more softly, softly approach than in Britain and if a man is paying adequate maintenance and not defaulting, the MRU doesn't need to have anything to do with him.

"There are occasions when we ask the claimant to report to the gardai that his or her spouse is missing and to produce evidence for us that they've done so, " says Patricia Molloy. If they're told he's fled to England they ask the claimant to write to the British department of social security there to have it check for their husband's current address and circumstances. However, Garda sources say rarely does a man or woman come to report his or her partner missing with a view to procuring evidence for the Health Board or MRU. A spokesperson from Coolock Garda Station says he has encountered one or two such instances in five years. The Garda i don't don't get involved, they say, unless there are concerns about the safety of the absconder. "Untraceables" would not be entered in their missing persons files.

"A good number of couples on welfare," state Garda sources, "realise that they can get more money if they separate and one of them qualifies for the One Parent Family Allowance. They have different addresses. They could be spending 24 hours together but technically they're living apart. Everyone knows it's going on but it's extremely difficult to prove.

"It wouldn't be fair to say that all of the untraceables are in the UK," suggests Liam Walsh, "but a lot of them are. If we can track them down we will. Unfortunately, if the guy has literally disappeared, you can appreciate how difficult it is." They do make an attempt to trace them through the British authorities but how successful they are can be gauged by the figures.

"It's not our policy not to pursue them abroad," says Patricia Molloy, "but it's obviously more cost efficient to get those cases at home sorted out first. Besides, we would have to get an order served from England and it's more expensive to go through the British judicial system. Nobody living abroad is contributing payments at our behest at the moment."

Patricia Molloy points out that marriage breakdown costs money and that most of the people they deal with at the MRU tend to be in the £10,000 to £16,000 income bracket or lower. They rarely encounter anyone over the £20,000-a-year status, she maintains, for the obvious reason that their "dependents" aren't normally in need of welfare supplements

"We have to leave the liable relatives in a position to continue to work and have some standard of living," concludes Patricia Molloy. "Even if we caught all those `missing', there isn't a pot of gold at the end of the untraceables' rainbow. Many of them may not be able to give the £67.50 plus £15.20 [a week] per child of the One Parent Family Allowance."