Gerard Craughwell (Independent)

I welcome the Minister to the House. This is the first time I have addressed him in his current role. I congratulate him on his position.

Before I get into reading my notes, one of the questions that crosses my mind when I come across a case like John O'Meara's is why the State forces a family to go the whole way to a Supreme Court judgment in order to fix something that was morally wrong in the first instance.I know it is not the Minister's fault or the fault of his officials; it is the way the system works. The State has deep pockets and could keep a family in the courts forever if it wanted to do that. It is grossly unfair. That man had to go through so much, having lost his partner, just to look after his children.

It brings to mind another issue. There is only one instance of which I am aware where a person can receive two social welfare payments. A person can receive disablement and disability payments together, as far as I am aware. I am not aware of any other circumstance where a person can have two payments.

I ask the Minister to consider a young widow or widower who loses a partner early in life and is granted the widow or widower's pension. He or she has a job as well. The moment he or she comes to retirement age and qualifies for the contributory pension, his or her partner's pension is lost. If I had been paying social welfare all my life and I die, I have paid for what I am getting. It is not a gift from the State. I paid for it. My wife is entitled to her widow's pension and to whatever she paid for as well. That is another anomaly that will one day have to find itself in the Supreme Court. A relation of mine struggled hard all her life to educate her kids after her husband died. The moment she turned 66, bang, the widow's pension was gone, which left her in hardship. Her income suddenly and completely collapsed. That is something we have to look at. As Senator Rabbitte said, John O'Meara - what a man. His wonderful partner would have made sure her payments were up to date and everything else.

The law as it stood under section 124 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 required a bereaved partner to be a legal widow, widower or surviving civil partner. I see another Supreme Court case coming on the legislation the Minister has brought before us today. Earlier, the Minister said:

This section also sets out where a spouse or civil partner whose relationship has broken down for more than two years shall not be considered a bereaved partner for the purposes of the Act.

We live in troubled times. Relationships break down. There are many examples of a relationship breaking down but the partners do their best to try to make a family life for their family. They are living apart and trying to work through whatever differences they have. At some stage, they come to the decision that they should try to get back together and make it work. They might have been apart for three years, attending marriage or relationship counselling in order to get back into a relationship but a month before they were due to move in together, one or the other dies. They would not qualify under this provision. They would find themselves in a situation of being in a relationship that probably would have cemented and re-established itself again and any children would have benefited from the joint income arrangements of the relationship. It is possibly a moot point, but people die, relationships break down, get repaired and people come back together again. Are we going to force some unfortunate woman or man into the courts to prove they were in the process of rebuilding the relationship? I am fully aware that there is a possibility that this would be exploited.