Family finances can be challenging at the best of times but, for separated parents navigating co-parenting, it can be a source of tension. From back-to-school expenses to birthday parties, the question of who pays for what can spark conflict if there isn’t agreement.
Without a plan, even routine costs can cause argument, making an already difficult transition harder for everyone.
Many people co-parent successfully, but for some there can be “a massive problem around maintenance”, says Aisling Kelly, parenting service manager of One Family, an organisation supporting those who are sharing parenting.
Parents have a legal duty to financially support their dependent children: that’s the law. But it can be different in practice.
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“A lot of parents tell us the maintenance isn’t paid, or it’s only paid every so often and, anecdotally, it can feel like maintenance can go unpaid without consequence,” says Kelly. This can mean serious financial hardship.
Maintenance is just one part of the picture.
“Maintenance is about the roof over your children’s heads, food, light, heat, but then there are additional costs like the doctor, the dentist, going to the Gaeltacht, or they need a laptop for secondary school – that is not what maintenance is for,” says mediator Michelle Browne, of Browne & Co Mediation.
Things like school uniforms, childcare and football boots are not maintenance costs, but rather expenses – and these are typically shared by parents, says Browne.
Mediation is an alternative to court that can still provide a legally binding agreement.
Some co-parents can struggle with communication around who pays for what, says Kelly. “Often, there is a sense that it is unfair and that the financial burden is on one person more than the other,” she says.
“That’s very difficult for the parent who has primary care of the child and is carrying the burden of those day-to-day expenses.”
Things have the best chance of working smoothly when a “parenting plan” that includes a detailed list of children’s costs can be agreed.
“We would advise parents in the early days of separation to get it all mapped out,” says Kelly. Using a service like One Family or a mediator can help take the heat out of things.
Maintenance
Maintenance is for your children, not for your ex. Emphasising this distinction to warring co-parents can be important, says Kelly.
“We always remind parents that maintenance is for your children, their physical, social and emotional needs,” she says.
There are three main ways in which co-parents can agree maintenance. You can make an informal written agreement yourselves; use a professional mediator or your own solicitors to help do it; or, where you can’t agree, you can go to court, where a judge will decide.
Going to court, especially for those not eligible for free legal aid, can prove expensive. It can be more adversarial, and take longer too.
Whatever way you go, family finances generally take a serious hit when a couple separates. One household becomes two, and this changes the financial reality for everyone in the family.
If one parent had been contributing €3,000 a month to the family pot before separation, and now they have to rehouse themselves, affordability needs to be looked at alongside what is in the best interests of the children, says Browne.
“It’s about being realistic about what someone can afford, while also understanding the requirements of the law,” she says.
‘Sometimes, parents are so overwhelmed, they can’t see the wood for the trees. Communication with the other parent is often very triggering for them, they aren’t even seeing or reading correctly what’s being said’
— Aisling Kelly, One Family
“If the children are primarily with the Mum, maintenance is not something you can decide to pay or not; it’s a legislative requirement that it is paid, and so are the other expenses.”
In mediation, as with the court process, both parties will be asked to provide a “statement of means”. Itemising things such as a person’s salary, their rent or mortgage repayment gives mutual clarity over income and outgoings. Clarity over assets and savings is also critical.
The expenses and income must be verified in the form of payslips or receipts.
Though mediation isn’t court, it will reflect the reality of what might happen in a court. For example, if a party is adamant about not making any payment, they are reminded of what might be mandated should things end up in court, says Browne.
The courts say “correct provision” must be made for children. The District Court puts an upper limit on maintenance payments of €150 per child, per week, while the upper limit in the Circuit Court is €250, says Browne.
Your statement of means, alongside factors including the number of days of the week your child spends with you, will inform what your maintenance payment might look like.
A new maintenance calculator launched by the Department of Justice is aimed at reducing conflict and tension between parents by making the calculation of child maintenance more objective.
By giving parents guidance in setting the levels of child maintenance, the hope is to reduce the number of child maintenance applications coming before the courts, the department says. Parents should use the calculator’s estimate as a “starting point” for discussion, the department says.
To work out maintenance, the calculator looks at parents’ incomes, minus the minimum each needs to support themselves for factors including housing, food and transport. The calculator puts this minimum subsistence level at €17,998 per parent.
It also takes into account the age of the children, how many children there are and how much parenting time each parent has.
Take Sinéad and John, parents of two children aged eight and 10. John earns €70,000 a year and Sinéad earns €50,000 a year. Sinéad has the children five nights a week, or 260 nights a year, while they stay with John two nights a week, or 105 nights a year.
The calculator estimates that John should pay Sinead €67.77 a week, or €267.67 a month for the maintenance of their children, with this amount expected to cover both children.
Experts in the area say the calculator’s estimates are too low. And while the calculator provides guidance on maintenance, there is still no guarantee of payment.
“Everyone has the right to go to court and ensure their maintenance arrangement is appropriate,” says Kelly.
Most applications for maintenance are made in the District Court, and a court order will specify how the maintenance is to be paid.
Those ineligible for free legal aid and for whom a private solicitor is too expensive can fall between stools, she says. This is where services such as One Family provide support.
“If one parent is saying to us, ‘Well, he won’t pay maintenance’, we will reach out to the other parent and often they have different perspectives,” says Kelly.
“He might say, ‘I can’t pay rent on one property and the mortgage on another, I’m keeping a roof over my children’s heads’ – so we are hearing both sides, staying neutral, staying in the space of the child and supporting both parents to shift their thinking.”
Ground rules
“Sometimes, parents are so overwhelmed, they can’t see the wood for the trees. Communication with the other parent is often very triggering for them, they aren’t even seeing or reading correctly what’s being said. They are just picking up a tone and going with that,” says Kelly.
The new maintenance calculator isn’t for all families. Where there is “abnormally high income”, the calculator may not be an appropriate estimate of maintenance, the department says.
Based on estimates of the costs of children for households across existing income distribution in Ireland, the calculator may not reflect the “typical costs” of children in the top decile of household income, the Department of Justice says. The calculator puts this at €288,956, equating to two incomes of €144,500 each.
Where the financial support sought exceeds the limits of the lower courts, or if the case is part of a separation involving significant assets, a maintenance application can go to the High Court.
Depending on co-parents’ circumstances, and if their time with the children is shared equally, some parents may agree that maintenance is not paid and that instead they share expenses.
Expenses
Outside of maintenance, there will be expenses. Those who are able to be forensic about their children’s expenses in their parenting agreement have the best chance of pre-empting friction.
School uniforms, school transport, language trips, activities, holidays – listing individual costs means there are fewer surprises, and costs can be anticipated and planned for. The list will clearly evolve as the child gets older.
“Maybe you’ve always been the one who has done the back-to-school preparation so, where you know this cost is coming, flag it to the other parent sooner rather than later,” says Browne.
Agreeing ahead of time how things are paid means fewer individual negotiations which can feel like a constant stream of “asks”, with potential friction every time.
“What works best is, no surprises,” says Browne.
Proportionality is an important feature of financial agreements, she says. “If one parent is earning €30,000 and the other €130,000, it’s not fair for these costs to be shared. We want to create fairness in the parenting agreement for it to work,” says Browne.
Your parenting agreement should outline how expenses must be vouched too. This could entail keeping a photo record of receipts, or managing it through a payment app.
Specialist co-parenting apps are sometimes recommended by the court. Centralising communication and expense-tracking in this way can reduce conflict and create a court-admissible record of interactions.
Using an app can depersonalise things too in a way that phone calls, texts and emails cannot.
“There can be an awful lot of boundary-breaking, or someone wanting to know how the other is spending the money, or what they are doing with their time, if they are going out, how many drinks they had,” says Kelly. “This is about keeping it focused on the children.”
‘It’s about making these decisions in advance so there isn’t upset down the line, because nobody benefits from that’
— Michelle Browne, Browne & Co Mediation
Parents should set some money ground rules too.
“Perhaps if the expense is over a certain amount, you agree to check with the other parent before you buy it,” says Browne. “For example, the Gaeltacht is €1,500, the kids really want to go. Is it okay with you that we share this?” says Browne.
“Don’t use money to spoil children; don’t talk about money in front of them, and don’t use your children to courier money between you.
“Ultimately, there is only so much money in everybody’s pot. Everybody’s ‘who pays for what’ looks different, but it costs nothing to try to work together – except for how hard it is,” says Browne.
“What is to be applauded is the parents who say, this is really, really tough but we are going to sit in a room and use a professional to help us get there.”
Special occasions
There were 186,487 families in the State where the sole parent was the mother, according to Central Statistics Office figures from Census 2022. The number of one-parent-father families was 33,509, an increase of 3,804 since 2016, according to the figures.
Big, set-piece family occasions such as birthdays, Christmas, Communions and Confirmations can be a heightened time for those co-parenting. Then there’s the cost of it.
A birthday party at a play centre can cost the bones of €300. A Communion could set you back about €900, according to research by Ulster Bank from more than five years ago.
So, it’s important to decide in advance what should happen with special occasions, says Browne.
“You might decide birthday celebrations are capped at €200 and we will have one joint party, or we are going to do separate parties,” says Browne.
“It’s about making these decisions in advance so there isn’t upset down the line, because nobody benefits from that.”
It’s about trying not to “show off” to your child financially too, she says. If one parent wants to give the child a phone or runners, it’s key to agree to check this with the other parent first.
It’s also important to try not to use money to win favour with children, she says.
“Children do not do well when these things are conflictual; they pick up on the tension,” says Kelly. “We always come back to this being about what’s best for your children.”
