Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)

I welcome the Minister. Fáilte, a Aire.

Thankfully, at this stage, there is general society acceptance at all levels that bereavement and loss are not restricted to those who are formally and legally married but, as we have said here today, this was not always the case. This Bill is largely thanks to the campaigning work of Johnny O'Meara of Tipperary in highlighting the glaring inequality of treatment between married and unmarried couples.

I welcome the intent demonstrated in the Bill to extend pension rights to surviving cohabiting partners and I hope that it passes all remaining Stages as quickly as possible. For too long, unmarried couples have been treated as an anomaly, even as second-class citizens, by the Department of Social Protection - considered as a couple when subject to the means test but not recognised as a couple when it comes to receiving a widow's or widower's pension. Unmarried couples, as we clearly hear today, are not an anomaly and deserve equal and fair treatment along with those who have undergone a legal recognition of their relationships.

It is a missed opportunity that the rights of children were not included in this Bill, but I am supporting this.