Madam, - In response to Anna Sarkadi of the University of Uppsala (March 18th) may I be permitted to say the following? The central point is that the study conducted by the University of Uppsala shows that fathers, and father figures, matter. It shows that children tend to do better when a father or father figure is present and active in their lives.
This being so, we must then ask: which set of policies is most likely to engage a father in the lives of their children? The evidence strongly suggests that the answer to this question is marriage. It is true, as Anna Sarkadi points out, that a married father will not be automatically engaged in the lives of his children, but he is considerably more likely to be than if he is not married.
We know the difficulty unmarried, divorced and separated fathers often have in maintaining regular contact with their children, sometimes despite their best efforts. We also know that unmarried, divorced and separated fathers sometimes simply lose contact with their children over time and, in the case of unmarried fathers, never come into contact with them at all in some cases.
This is much less likely to happen if the father is married to the mother of his children. This is why we must continue to give particular support to the marriage between a man and a woman. - Yours, etc,
PATRICIA CASEY, Professor of Psychiatry, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Eccles Street, Dublin 7.