Ms Eilís Ní Chaithnía:

Women predominately rely on State pensions to provide an income in their older years. Yet, for a number of reasons, historical and current, women continue to have less access than men to State pensions. Currently, 84% of those receiving a State contributory pension are men, while women continue to rely on reduced means-tested pension payments or remain as dependents on their husbands' pensions.

The fact that only 16% of women receive the full contributory State pension reflects the legacy of the marriage bar and a system poorly designed to support individual entitlement or recognise the care which women carry out. Time spent caring must be recognised and credited, for people currently in the workforce and those who are now of retirement age and have spent a large portion of their lives caring.

As a member of the steering committee for the national strategy for women and men 2017-2020, we welcomed the commitment by the Department of Social Protection that future pension policy reforms be gender-proofed to assess their impact on women as well as men, including the total contributions approach. In order to guarantee pension equality for women, however, we must address existing injustices in the pension system, as well as ensuring they do not occur in the future.

The NWCI is increasingly contacted by women who are concerned about this issue, many of whom are already deeply affected by the ongoing inequalities in our pension system. Yet it is remarkable that in reports and discussions on pensions, gender issues receive relatively little attention. For that reason, we very much appreciate the committee's efforts to focus on this matter. This is particularly concerning considering that budgetary decisions over the period of recession have resulted in an increase in the gender pension gap in Ireland, which rose from 35% in 2010 to 37% in 2012.

While the State contributory pension payment was protected during the recession, the non-contributory pension, on which the majority of women rely, has been steadily eroded. In 2012, changes made to the eligibility criteria for the State contributory pension effectively made it more difficult for those without a full-time, long-term working history to qualify for the maximum weekly payment.

The NWCI and others clearly signalled the potential disproportionate impact on women of these changes in advance of their introduction. We are aware that Age Action has recently presented to the committee in detail on the impact of these particular changes, including figures provided to it by the Department of Social Protection indicating that of the 36,000 people affected by these changes by June 2016, more than 62% were women. In addition, the minimum number of contributions required was doubled in 2012, from 260 to 520, which had a direct impact on the standard of living of older women.

One key issue of concern for women is having access to pension entitlements in the first instance; many women remain reliant on their spouse for access to pension entitlements. The quarterly national household survey from the fourth quarter of 2015 found that almost one in ten female workers expected their spouse or partner's occupational or personal pension to be their main source of retirement income, compared with 2% of men. Under the current system, women are hampered from building up sufficient contributions across the private and public pension systems as a result of the pay gap, precarious and low-paid work, carrying out unpaid caring and being excluded from the labour market for long periods over the course of their lives as a result of the prohibitive cost of child care.

Women who have worked on family farms and in family businesses also do not have social insurance coverage, which means they are totally reliant on their husbands in older age. We have held a series of workshops with older women in Caherciveen and in Duhallow, County Cork, recently, which focused on pensions and women. We discussed the impact on rural women, where women working on farms and being engaged in seasonal work was of particular importance to the women concerned. They will take up advocacy around that for themselves, supported by the NWCI.

The homemaker's scheme makes it easier for people, the majority of whom are women, who stop working for a period to take care of children or adults to qualify for pensions. However, it has not been of equal benefit to all women as only those who took career breaks after 1994 are covered by this scheme. We recommend that the scheme be applied retrospectively by the State immediately in order to ensure equitable access to the State pension and benefit older women.

The national pensions framework made a commitment to replace the homemaker's disregard with credits for new pensioners but there is yet to be official confirmation of when this will happen. It should be a key priority for budget 2018, with the credits made applicable for up to ten years and applied retrospectively to 1973. It would be a practical recognition of the social and economic contribution of care that women make and would serve as a re-entry credit in order that they can access education, training and employment supports. This is not only a practical and long overdue budgetary decision but a means of rebuilding trust among women in the pensions system.

Women are not likely to be in an equal position to men with regard to their pension entitlement for the foreseeable future as they continue to carry out the majority of care and are more likely to be in part-time and low-paid work. A private pensions system is, therefore, not the sustainable answer for the vast majority of women to secure a decent income in their older years, nor is a State pension that does not fully recognise care work. Pension reform must ensure that, as far as possible, everyone can equally establish an entitlement to an adequate pension.

The time has come to move to a universal pension system that gives women and men equal access to a comprehensive pension guarantee. This pension must be at a payment rate to provide a decent standard of living for all. Budget 2018 should initiate the introduction of a universal pension to be phased in over an agreed number of years.

NWCI warmly welcomes the commitment made in A Programme for a Partnership Government to gender and equality-proof the budget. By taking immediate steps in budget 2018 to address indirect gender discrimination in current pension policy, as outlined above, the Government will act in part fulfilment of this commitment.