Mr Tony Lowth is convinced political forces and legal decisions have combined to deny him, and other men in his position, equal treatment under the social welfare code.
He was deserted by his wife in 1984, when their son and daughter were aged two and three respectively. She formed another relationship and within a year had another child. He has reared the two children since.
Within weeks of the desertion, he found it impossible to keep his job so he left it to care for his children and claimed unemployment benefit. He was refused assistance from the social welfare relieving officer. According to Mr Lowth, the relieving officer later told him he had been told to refuse it by the family's social worker.
"I came into a culture that a man could not raise children on his own," he said. "I discovered when I went looking for help I was invariably told: `Unless the mother co-operates, we can do nothing for you.' The whole thing was very uncaring."
He became involved in the Family Law Reform Group, where he met a solicitor who later offered to legally challenge the refusal of deserted wives' benefit to him, on both constitutional grounds and on the basis of EC equality directives. He also got involved with the lone parents' organisation, Gingerbread.
He did get some help from the social services, but only after a struggle. "There were a lot of programmes about child sex-abuse on television at the time. I wanted those children to see a woman every day I was not involved with, and I went looking for a home help. I wanted a woman who could say I was not abusing the children."
After threatening to leave the children with the social services for two weeks, a woman was sent to him as a home help. She was there for 14 years. "She's been a rock. She was a miracle-worker with the children. She took my children as if they were her own, she was a second mother to them. Her husband was great too."
Things did not go so well on the legal front. His solicitor had engaged two barristers, a senior and a junior counsel, both well-known as family lawyers, to fight his case. The junior counsel told the solicitor the case should be in the High Court by Christmas 1987.
A year later, there was no sign of it coming up. In January 1989, the then Minister for Finance, Mr Albert Reynolds, announced a new payment - widowers' and deserted husbands' allowance. Mr Lowth's solicitor then told him one of the barristers had said that the proceedings were now redundant.
He was very annoyed and asked his solicitor to complain to the Bar Council about the delay in the case. On July 24th, 1989, the secretary of the Bar Council wrote to his solicitor saying: "The Professional Practices Committee has completed its investigations into this matter and has upheld Mr Lowth's complaint of unnecessary delay . . . in dealing with his affairs. The committee very much regrets that it should have been necessary for you to make the complaint on Mr Lowth's behalf."
It did not mention what sanction, if any, it imposed.
The case continued with the other barrister for a time, then a new team of barristers was briefed, but there was still no sign of it reaching the High Court. Because of the new deserted husbands' allowance, it was now being fought on constitutional grounds alone.
By January 1993, Mr Lowth was frustrated with the continuing delays and contacted the then leader of the Progressive Democrats, Mr Dessie O'Malley, who is also a solicitor. Mr O'Malley wrote a letter on his behalf to the Bar Council about the delays but, according to Mr Lowth, did not receive a reply.
In October that year, the case came up in the High Court. Judgment was reserved until December, when Mr Justice Costello found the Oireachtas had taken a view that a married woman in Irish society fulfilled a different function to a married man and required greater help. This was based on the Constitution.
In 1994, another solicitor took up the case and prepared it for the Supreme Court. It took two years and eventually was heard earlier this year. Mr Justice Hamilton handed down the court's reserved judgment on July 14th, upholding the High Court judgment. Costs were awarded against Mr Lowth.
Meanwhile, he is still convinced his case was mishandled by his barristers between 1989 and 1993. In July this year, the Bar Council's Professional Practices Committee held an oral hearing into this complaint. Last week, Mr Lowth was told the Bar Council did not uphold his complaint.
He insists there are broader issues at stake. "Why can't they allow men to go back into the kitchen if women want to go to work?"