1. INTRODUCTION

It is hard to overstate Professor John Eekelaar’s contribution to the understanding of family law, not only in England and Wales, but internationally. His research over the past 50 years, investigating the nuances of various aspects of family law and policy, has had a significant impact in Ireland, in particular. In light of the ‘youthful nature of family law as an academic discipline’ in the jurisdiction, Irish family law academics have drawn extensively on his contributions to better understand the principles and policies that ground family laws generally, as well as to place Irish family law in an international context and evaluate the options for reform. However, while it has been suggested that, ‘[g]iven the state of our knowledge of the workings of family law … [w]ork like that of Eekelaar, Dewar and others’ still remains ‘a long way off’ in Ireland, significant progress is being made. A number of key empirical studies undertaken in the last ten to 15 years provide important insights into how Irish family law now operates in practice.

Drawing on this research, and reflecting on one element of Irish family law that has received comparatively little academic attention to date, this contribution focuses specifically on Irish maintenance laws, and investigates their ‘direction of travel’. Section 2 traces how the recognition of maintenance obligations has evolved in Ireland over the past 50 years, distinguishing between marital and non-marital contexts. Relying on the findings of recent empirical research, section 3 considers how these laws are being applied in practice. It highlights, in particular, the difficulties that have emerged in light of the failure to expressly articulate the extent of any maintenance obligations under Irish law. Section 4 then considers how Irish child and spousal maintenance laws might be developed, and questions the likelihood of such reform.

2. THE EVOLUTION OF IRISH MAINTENANCE LAWS

2.1. MAINTENANCE AND THE MARITAL FAMILY

Throughout the twentieth century, marriage and marital status enjoyed a privileged social, legal and constitutional position in Ireland. Marital status was associated with social respectability, while marital breakdown was regarded as taboo: the remedy of divorce a vinculo remained constitutionally prohibited until 1996.