New legislation which would make it compulsory for fathers’ names to be registered on their children’s birth 
certs, whether or not he is married to the child’s mother is being planned by the Government.
The Department of Social Protection is planning to include the provision in legislation to be published this year, and it is currently taking legal advice on the practicalities of such a move, according to a report in the Sunday Times.
Families, Fathers and Children, a charity representing fathers’ rights, has welcomed the move.
They said the new law would be a “first step” in giving unmarried fathers more rights in respect of their children.
Sohail Butt, chief executive of the group, said that the move was “good news for children, as much as it is for fathers”.
“It means that fathers cannot run away from their responsibilities. Once their names are on the birth certificate, they are obliged by law to provide maintenance for their children. This is long overdue.”
The group had proposed such a move in 2010, in a document, “Charter for Family Law”.
It lays out a number of proposals, including a change in the Constitution. It claims that fathers “married and unmarried” have no rights in respect of their children under the Constitution or in legislation.
Apart from a change in the Constitution and automatic guardianship, the document also called for more transparency of family court proceedings through relaxation of In Camera rule and the recognition of pre-nupital agreements.
Currently, unmarried fathers have only the right to apply for guardianship. Unmarried mothers are given guardianship status automatically.
However, fathers who are married are also automatically made guardians of their children in law.
Guardianship confers many of the rights of married parents, including the right to be consulted on key decisions in a child’s life.
Figures published in 2010 showed that 4,000 birth certs are issued every year without a father’s name.
Frances Byrne, chief executive of One Parent, a campaign group for lone parents welcomed the development, calling it “hugely important”.
A spokesperson for the Department of Social Protection said that the proposal still had many stages to go through.
Mary White, junior minister for Equality under the last Government, had promised to help fathers who are being denied access to their children by their former partners.
Minister White said: “We have to have to have a clear path for access — guardianship or custody or even familial visits of separated and single dads so those visits can be facilitated and not frustrated by a partnership that has been dissolved or that has irretrievably broken down.”
In 2009, the Law Reform Commission published a consultation paper, Legal Aspects of Family Relationships, in which it suggested that there should be a statutory presumption that non-marital fathers be made guardians of their children, unless this was not in the child’s best interest or would jeopardise the welfare of the child.
The paper also called for submissions on whether unmarried fathers should have automatic guardianship rights.
The paper recommends that the terms “parental responsibility” and “day-to-day care and contact” replace the legal terms “guardianship” and “custody and access”, which would bring Ireland’s terminology into that used in EU law and by the Council of Europe.
It recommends keeping the distinction between birth registration and guardianship, but suggests that the law should do more to “encourage greater joint registration of births”
It suggests that the false belief that joint registration automatically grants guardianship rights or parental responsibility, and has implications for eligibility to the lone parent’s allowance may be one reason for the absence of the father’s name on the register in some cases.