Dáil debates

Wednesday, 2 July 2025

Social Welfare (Bereaved Partner’s Pension and Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages

 

1:00 pm

Photo of Claire KerraneClaire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

I want to be associated with the case made on amendment No. 1 and I wish to speak in support of amendment No. 2, which is grouped with amendment No. 1. Amendment No. 2 proposes a report that includes the examination of estimated savings by excluding those who lost a partner before that date in January 2024. For a number of years in the House I have raised the need to extend the widows pension to unmarried couples where a partner is lost, particularly where there are children. Accessing supports based on marriage is a very outdated, old and ancient rule in social welfare. Of course, when it comes to the means test and everything else, it does not matter whether people are cohabiting. Marriage is irrelevant and everyone's means is taken into account. It is one rule for one thing and another rule in other cases when money is paid out.

I have been raising this issue for a number of years because of a constituent close to my hometown who lost her fiancé in December 2021. They had three very young children and he died suddenly. They were due to get married but, unfortunately, because of Covid the wedding had to be cancelled. It was postponed and then he died suddenly. If he had died in December 2024 she would have been entitled to the widow's pension but based on the date she will not be entitled to it. I had promised her, as I sought this change, that I hoped it would be for everyone who has lost a partner, regardless of the date. There are not that many people in this category. I feel obliged, now that legislation is going through, to make the case on her behalf. She is not the only one but I feel obliged to do it this evening. It is something that has been asked of the Minister, and he has said it cannot be done, but I would like him to take the opportunity this evening to advise us on what he has done on the extension of this and why it is not possible.

We will have people who will access the widow's pension because their partner died after a certain date, and we will have widows in the exact same position but based on the date they will not be able to access it. This is deeply unfair. We should never base laws on a certain date or time. It should be for everyone, and it should be equal no matter what date someone lost the person they love, in many cases the father or mother of their children.

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