Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

There are 150,000 cohabiting couples in Ireland who are unmarried or in a civil partnership, and half of these couples have children together. Yet currently, if one person in the couple were to unfortunately pass away, the surviving partner would not be entitled to a bereaved partner's pension. The Supreme Court ruled in January 2024 that these partners are being discriminated against under the equality guarantee in the Constitution. It was ruled that these people should not be denied access to a bereaved partners pension and the bereavement grant on the basis they were not married. The situation currently sees partners who lose their loved ones being left to deal with their grief and an additional financial burden. They are left without adequate support. As campaigners themselves have said, grief does not discriminate and neither should the pension. While I welcome the Bill's expansion of support to bereaved partners and their families, there are a number of points that must be made to ensure the proposed legislation fulfils its promise to them.

First, I highlight that campaigners themselves have asked for a reasonable cohabitation period. Under the Bill, it will allow a person to become a qualified cohabitant after two years if the couple have children, but five years if they have not had children. Campaigners have asked it be considered that the required cohabitation period for couples without children be reduced to three years.

Campaigners have also asked for a fair and flexible system to be put in place for assessment proof of cohabitation. If all those people who have lost a loved one since or before January 2024 are to qualify for a bereaved person's pension, we could be talking about people who have lost their loved ones years ago, if not decades ago, in some cases. We need flexibility in the system. A shared address on a document, a sign of joint finances or any of the other criteria used for joint social welfare assessments should at the least be considered acceptable proof.

I also raise a concern that has been expressed by the free legal advice centre, FLAC. Currently, those who are married or are in a civil partnership and later separate or divorce can access a survivor's pension should their former partner pass away. If they remarry or begin cohabiting with a new partner, they will have to relinquish that pension. The Bill will remove this entitlement. As pointed out by FLAC, this particular proposal runs contrary to the recommendations of the social protection committee in the last Dáil which recommended "retaining the current entitlement of divorced and separated partners to a survivor's pension and expand it to surviving qualified cohabitants who were separated as opposed to taking the 'levelling-down' approach outlined in the General Scheme.".

It also points out this particular proposal is contrary to the O'Meara decision, which is the reason we are seeing this Bill moved today, and was underpinned by the principle that all children should be treated equally, irrespective of whether their parents were married, civil partners or cohabiting. The proposed legislation, as it stands, would treat these children of separated or divorced parents less favourably than children whose partners are married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting. The death of a former partner can still bring about a financial loss for families.

To ensure compliance with the O'Meara judgment, entitlement to the new bereaved partner's pension should be expanded to cover divorced and separated partners, who were financially dependant on their deceased partner in respect of their children. I ask the Minister to consider FLAC's recommendation and that of the social protection committee in the last Dáil and amend this Bill to maintain the current definitions of separated, qualified cohabitants. That would mean that in the event of a divorce, the surviving partner would remain entitled to the bereaved partner's pension. The O'Meara judgment was based on the rights of children to financial security in the event of a parent's death and we need to vindicate the rights of all children to financial security after parental death, regardless of the marital status of their parents.

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