I was looking for petitions in relation to the inequality of rights given to unmarried fathers in Ireland and found a petition started by Castleknock Community College 2 years ago. The fact that this petition did not even reach 200 signatures is baffling to me as this is a serious flaw within the judicial system in Ireland and a clearly biased one sided one. I am attempting to revive this petition and get many more signatures on it. I myself have felt the difficulties of of this issue personally being an unmarried father and I was originally lied to about me being the father to my son for 3 years and now I have to fight for my rights to be in my sons life and have any influence over him. Here are the facts.

At 200 signatures, this petition is more likely to be featured in recommendations.

Castleknock Community College Transition Year - Young Social Innovators started this petition originally to Politicians in Ireland as well as figures of high authority

“Under current Irish family law, unmarried fathers in Ireland do not have automatic rights to custody, joint guardianship of or access to their children. However, they do have the automatic responsibility of paying maintenance"

How would you feel if you had no say in whether you could ever see your own child again? Unmarried Irish fathers have no basic rights over their own children. This is pure deprivation of human rights. It is a sexist system which uses stereotyping as its rationale. This is a clear violation of not only the rights of the unmarried father, but perhaps more importantly, the rights of the child to have a relationship with both parents. This discriminatory system increases the likelihood of the development of mental health issues in both fathers and their estranged children. 

Over one-in-three Irish children (37.8%) are born outside of marriage. 40% of these children only see/live with one parent. The majority of these parents with full-time custody are women. This in turn results in the majority of unmarried fathers having little or no say in the raising, rearing and nurturing of their child.

Please help me reach our target in this petition and make a difference. Not all fathers are good But not all of us are bad either and some of us genuinly want to be part of our children's lives. This is not a fault of a father or a mother but a fundamental issue with the Judicial system in Ireland and allows more opportunity for a child to be used as a weapon.