Eileen Flynn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I extend my full support to the people from Donegal and others who are in Dublin today to call for 100% redress for homeowners affected by mica. Homeowners have long said that the current scheme is not fit for the purpose. The time for action is now.

On another matter, I will talk about an inequality in our system that continues to affect some parents who are not married but are cohabiting, many of whom are in long-term, committed relationships. The organisation Treoir, which works with parents who are not married to each other, brought this to my attention. Recently, it has been supporting a number of families who find themselves disadvantaged because of their marital status.

Treoir told me of a father who lost his life partner and the mother of their three children earlier this year due to Covid-19. Although they had been living together for 20 years they never got married. A married man in a similar situation would be entitled to the widower's grant, an €8,000 support provided through the Department of Social Protection. This can be a very important support when one loses a loved one. This unmarried father was unable to access the widower's pension because he was not married to his life partner. This unmarried couple both paid their PRSI. If they had been married for just one day, the partner would have been entitled to the widower's pension and grant. These children are being denied the opportunity to benefit from a State support that children of married parents benefit from. For all other social protection supports, these unmarried parents would be assessed as a married couple but for the widower's grant and pension these people are assessed as individuals. This is not right. The recent Citizens' Assembly report on gender equality calls for a constitutional change to protect families, with protection not limited to the marital families.I support Treoir's call for the Government to extend the widower's grant to cohabiting couples and to put in place a pension scheme for cohabiting couples. I lost my mother at a very young age. There were nine of us. If my father did not get the supports we needed from the State, we would never have survived. Therefore, we must really look at the issue of unmarried people, some of whom have been living together for 20 years, and support them in some way, shape or form going forward. It is a debate that we need to take seriously. I call on the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Minister of State to do so.