ABSTRACT

One of the definable aspects of parental responsibility (see Chapter 24) is the obligation to support a child financially. This has resulted over the last decade in the separation of child maintenance from assessment of support and financial provision for the spouse, whether on divorce or within marriage, and in the creation of a uniform regime for child support regardless of whether the child’s parents are married or not-so that all children, marital and non-marital, are to be treated equally for this purpose. The magic vehicle was supposed to be the Child Support Agency (CSA), set up to implement the Child Support Acts.