If the Government is to support the family, it must first redefine the term, writes Nuala Haughey
Mary Coughlan is setting up a giant kitchen table for us all to sit around, like one big family, to talk about how to make things better. The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, herself a working mother, says she wants to take the pulse and heartbeat of the nation on how best the State can support families.
Mixed metaphors aside, the Minister's decision to invite public submissions on the needs of families at five forthcoming regional public consultations has been broadly welcomed.
The family forums, chaired by journalist Olivia O'Leary, will kick off in the Minister's constituency of Donegal at a date to be announced shortly, taking written and oral submissions from groups and individuals.
It is obvious that "family" in Ireland has changed much in the 56 years since the State pledged in the Constitution to "endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home". As O'Leary pointed out at the announcement of the forums this week, there are almost twice as many women at work today as there were 10 years ago, and almost one third of births are to unmarried women. But groups working with families say our laws, policies and attitudes have yet to catch up with these and other realities.
So just how is official Ireland catering for families which depart from the orthodox single unit headed by two white, settled, married parents living with children under one roof with the father as the breadwinner and the mother as the home-maker?
The three families who, below, share their ideas on what the State can do to improve their lives reflect just some of the myriad combinations of caring relationships between adults and children that make up 21st century families in Ireland. Their wish- lists alone are substantial and would require radical legal amendments in the areas of family and tax, pensions and inheritance laws, significant policy changes across a range of areas and substantial attitudinal shifts from us all. Some measures would cost money, others would require little more than an opening of minds.
Ten years after homosexuality was decriminalised, same-sex couples want legal recognition of their relationships to afford them the financial and social security that married couples take for granted. The absence of this makes the smallest things difficult. For example, a lesbian woman whose partner is the biological mother of their daughter could not alone give permission for the child in her care to have an emergency anaesthetic as she has no legal relationship with her.
Forty per cent of children in Jobstown, Co Dublin, are growing up in single-parent families. Liz Waters from the An Cosán (The Path) centre for education, childcare and enterprise says she struggles daily to see evidence of the constitutionally-pledged protection and support for families in the lives of the young women around her. "We have had lone parents as part of our community for years," she says. "Have we ever seen a house built here that would suit a small, lone-parent family?"
Serious investment in childcare, education and accommodation for lone parents would be costly, but Waters maintains it would have a "multiplier effect", breaking the cycle of deprivation and low achievement and allowing people to contribute to the competitive employment field upon which this Government is so focused.
The Family Diversity Initiative, a broad coalition of concerned groups and agencies, was set up late last year precisely to point out the gaps in social policy, services and law faced by families which are categorised as non-traditional. In a nutshell, what do they want out of the family forums?
"That the reality of the diversity of families in Ireland is recognised and addressed," says its chairwoman, Karen Kiernan, who is also the director of the Cherish support organisation for single mothers. Over to you, Minister.