Senator Sharon Keogan has revealed that the Government has given a summer deadline to enact a law which would ensure the right of unmarried fathers to be named on their children’s birth certificates.

Senator Keogan said that after more than a decade of delays and repeated inquiries last week the Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, “told us that he expects that the law will be put into action ‘before the end of quarter two this year’”.

In 2014, the law regarding Civil Registration was updated. It required that unmarried mothers would be obliged to provide the details of the child’s biological father if he was not present.

The Senator said: “To date, however, the government and the HSE have not put this law into practice.

“This has meant that for the past decade, in the case of unmarried parents, the registration of the child’s father was near-totally at the discretion of the mother. Unmarried fathers who were not registered on their children’s birth certs could only be included if they pursued court action,” she said.

“The application of this law will help to safeguard the rights of unmarried fathers and ensure that children will be aware of their parentage.”