An MP has renewed calls for deadbeat dads who fail to pay child support to be placed on compulsory work schemes rather than jailed.

Deputy Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley has the backing of the Coalition for the Protection of Children, which argues that locking the men up gives no help to cash-strapped single mothers and costs taxpayers’ thousands of dollars a year.

Six men in Bermuda are currently doing time for failing to pay child support - five at the Farm Facility and one at Westgate Jail - according to figures provided to Mr. Dunkley in response to a parliamentary question.

He said: “If you are incarcerated, certainly you can’t pay child support while you are there. The Government gave a commitment about 18 months ago that they were going to look at the current arrangement.

“Nothing has been done. It doesn’t do any good to the people who need the money. Instead of when you catch people incarcerating them, there has got to be mandatory work programmes which Government puts them in.”

He said fathers unwilling to pay maintenance often moved around from job to job to prevent being tracked down by the state. “There are individuals out there who are trying to get away with not paying child support. If they get caught they say: ‘so what. I’ll go up to Westgate’. It’s no skin off their back to go to Westgate.”

Mr. Dunkley said the law needed reforming to ensure the men paid what they owed. “We need to get these people working and taking care of their responsibilities. When these young men think they are men enough to have children and then shirk their responsibilities, it’s not acceptable.”

Sheelagh Cooper, chairman of the Coalition for Children, agreed. “It’s a very big problem,” she said. “I would be a very big supporter of a work scheme and certainly there is plenty of work to be done.

“They really need to develop a work scheme so that they can actually pay their arrears. Putting them in prison is not going to do anything for the mother and is going to cost the general public something in the region of $65,000 a year per prisoner. It’s called zero return on your money.”

Ms Cooper said she was shocked that there were only six non-paying fathers locked up. “There have to be hundreds that are in arrears, very serious arrears.

“If there is only six of them in prison then there is something very wrong with the system. Having said that, prison isn’t the answer.”

She added: “The thing that seriously bothers me is that so many mothers go to prison for being in arrears with their rent or with one of the credit associations. They don’t seem to have any problem finding these women, even though those women are usually owed more in child support than they owe in rent.”

Ms Cooper said she did not think the law would need to be changed. “Judges have discretion. The men could be working on some of these building sites or doing something that would generate remuneration that would be given directly to the women.”

The Ministry of Justice did not respond to a question about whether there were any plans to introduce a work scheme.