maintenance for a single dad??

Kevhog1988

Mods: if this is in wrong section please move

Basically i have a 13month old baby with a girl i split up with before he was born (her decision not mine). I was told i could only have my name on his birth cert if i agreed to pay 100 per week maintenance. I work in the uk at the moment as i am a quantity surveyor and there is no work in ireland at my profession. As time has gone on she seems to see me as a constant bank link for her.. getting advances on maintenance etc etc. As it stands i work 12 days and then get to see him for a weekend (2 days daytime 5/6 hrs each day with no overnight stay) Sometimes i am unable to make it home due to work commitments and then she will not allow me to deviate as to the two days (often with a load of horrible txts that i dont care about my son etc etc).

My question is how do i go about finding out exactly how much i should pay.. possibley a percentage of my earnings??

As it stands flights etc are expensive and after paying rent, costs of flights etc i am constantly broke. Although i do want to provide for him as much as possible i dont honestly think she needs a 100 euro (she lives at home, gets social welfare etc).

Any help on this would be great, i have already looked at treoir.ie but there does not seem to be a guideline amount

Moonbeam

You need to talk to a solicitor and get a formal agreement in place for access and maintenance.

Kevhog1988

Moonbeam wrote: »

You need to talk to a solicitor and get a formal agreement in place for access and maintenance.

We already have had a informal agreement betwen both of us which worked well but now that circumstances have changed i would like to know if what i pay is excessive or not?? realistically it is a large chunk of my weelly wage and when i pay for flights etc and also buy him the stuff he needs for my house it leaves me nothing spare

ash23

100e is not a lot to pay for a child. However she should be declaring it if she is claiming social welfare. It isn't her fault you have to pay for flights (assuming you were the one who moved to the UK) and it's not any of your business that she is living at home. She might very well be paying rent there.

If you think the maintenance is excessive then get a formal maintenance order in place. If you are not happy with the access that is in place, get a formal order in place (although there wouldn't be flexibility in that either).

There isn't really a huge amount else that you can do.

If you go to solo.ie you can find a spreadsheet under "questions about maintenance" on the left side of the home page which will give an idea of how much it costs per week for the child.

testicle

Half the cost of the child is what's normal. She'll need to detail exactly what's being spent and on what.