Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Once again, remember, there were marriage bars. Many coupled reared families because it was the habit. The numbers are going down. The obvious thing to do is not start the third world war. We have enough with Putin trying to start a war without the Department of Social Protection. I am suggesting to go the other route. There is a decreasing number of these. They are there because it was the mores of society at the time and, in many couples, one reared the children. They performed huge contributions to society. My view is to go the other way and relax dramatically the income assessment on the dependent adult. Basically, the main earner in that situation thought they were getting a contributory pension for both of them. That is the way the whole society worked. As I said, many were not allowed to work because they were in public service jobs and the marriage bar came up. One thing the Department is always worrying about, as is certainly the Department of public expenditure and reform, is the long-term consequences. Will the numbers go up? Is that not right? It is an everyday scenario. Are the numbers going to go up? Does this open an open sesame? The reality is when you look at it, the number of dependent adults of contributory pensioners is going down. I have it here. In 2013 there were 68,000 contributory State pension qualified adults whereas now there are 51,000. It is a decreasing cost and generosity here will not cost anything because that figure will continue to go down. Into the future, with the childcare, most women will have the ten years. It is mainly women; let us be straight about this. We had the referendum about this whole issue and the people of Ireland gave a clear message that it is a choice. We should not be forcing people by economic necessity - that was the operative word.