John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The issue was very well set out by Deputy Bríd Smith. We have all met people at our constituency offices, mainly women, who have failed to qualify for what they thought would be the full-rate contributory pension. That was their expectation until they made their claims. The issue is primarily about the annual averaging because many of these people went back to work for extended periods. The problem was that they failed, pre-1994, to get the homemaker's credit and they had worked. The irony for many is that if they had entered the workforce in their 40s and worked for 20 years, they would be better off than if they had worked earlier.

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