Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise a sensitive issue. John O'Meara is my neighbour from Toomevara in County Tipperary. He is a self-employed agricultural plant contractor. He has three young children, Aoife, Jack and Tommy, aged from nine to 13 years. His partner, Michelle Batey, was 42 years old. She was from Nenagh and was a bank clerk with AIB. She was a couple of years behind me in school in Nenagh. Michelle got breast cancer in March 2018. She spent her 40th birthday receiving chemotherapy. She recovered. After the cancer they had plans to get married because they knew they needed to do so to protect their future together. However, before they could do that, sadly, Michelle contracted Covid-19 on 18 December last year and passed away on 31 January this year. There was great shock and sadness in the community in Nenagh in which I live.

As they did not get around to getting married, the State provides little or no support to John and his family. If he had lost his livelihood while cohabiting with Michelle, he would have been assessed for jobseeker's allowance on her income. Now he is not entitled to a widower's pension even though both of them worked all their lives. Article 41 of the Constitutions states: "The State recognises the Family as the natural primary and fundamental unit group of Society ..... The State, therefore, guarantees to protect the Family in its constitution and authority...". That definition of the family is founded on marriage. However, the family unit and how it is constituted in our country has changed fundamentally. The way people live their lives has changed. Many couples in Ireland will choose not to get married or some will just not get around to it, like John and Michelle, unfortunately. More people cohabit. The Ireland we live in has changed. The last census recorded over 150,000 cohabiting couples and over 75,000 of them living with children, an increase of 25% since 2011.

The Tánaiste is probably aware that the Citizens' Assembly has called for Article 41 to be amended to protect private and family life, not limited to a material family. Our laws and supports have not caught up with the way people live their lives in 2021. There is a major gap in our social protection system. If a couple is cohabiting, the Department of Social Protection will assess both of them and their means when carrying out a means test for a social assistance payment such as jobseeker's allowance or carer's allowance, but it does not provide any eligibility for social protection payments when one of the couple dies. That cannot continue.

Will the Government change the law on social protection payments to provide supports to cohabiting couples and surviving partners where one of the partners dies? Is the Government committed to a referendum on Article 41 and when does the Tánaiste expect this to take place? Finally, and most importantly, what comfort can the State give to my neighbour, John O'Meara, and his family, and, indeed, many other such families?

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