A SEPARATED mother had to ask the courts for permission for her child to go on a school-trip to Europe, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Family was told. Senator Paddy Bourke said the problem arose because legally she needed her husband's permission for the child to get a passport and he had refused to agree.
The committee heard a plea for better educational opportunities for lone parents. Ms Patricia Quinn, of the Lone Parents' Network in Tallaght, said the Vocational Training Opportunities Scheme - a second-chance education programme for people on welfare - had only two places for the 3,000 lone parents in the area.
But providing extra places for lone parents would be pointless without creche facilities to back them up.
Senator Bourke said that he had noticed in Castlebar, Co Mayo, that among some Leaving Cert students it was "kind of a fashion to have a child".
Ms Quinn said teenage pregnancies were declining and that she did not believe anybody went out deliberately to get pregnant.
Ms Geraldine French of Barnardos told the committee that getting lone parents to come to parenting courses required a great deal of preparation and building of trust. If she spoke to lone parents about parenting courses on their first visit to the toy library they would take their child and walk out, she said.
Instead, various activities such as courses in grooming and beauty were arranged before the question of parenting is brought up.
Ms Yvonne Milner of the Eastern Health Board said a parenting course run by the EHB had been very successful. Sister Eileen Mullen, who originally devised the course, said parents had come from all over the country to it. There were only three people working on the course and as a result it could not meet the demand, she said.
Mr Liam O Gogain of Parental Equality called for shared parenting between separated fathers and mothers. "Fathers are being marginalised," he said.
The institutionalised discrimination against fathers in welfare, social services, the family law system etcetera, left many men with little confidence in their parenthood, he said.