Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 16 November 2021

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage

Photo of Gerald NashGerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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The Minister will be familiar with some cases in the public domain in recent months. A partner may lose a partner with whom they have cohabited for considerable years and there can be implications for social welfare entitlements including widows' or widowers' pension entitlements. This has been raised by the Labour Party leader, Deputy Kelly, particularly in the context of social welfare entitlements but there are also tax implications. We all know well that the family takes many forms in modern Ireland and I believe it is time to give some legal recognition to all the different forms of diverse family relationships that we have, tricky as that may be.

The amendment calls for a report on the treatment of cohabitants under the taxes Acts, with all of those complexities. It may be a mammoth task but it may be something that the Commission on Taxation and Welfare could usefully consider, notwithstanding the large body of work it has to examine over the next year or so. I would ask the Minister and the committee to consider the amendment in the spirit in which it is proposed.