GOVERNMENT failure to reform the pension system and introduce a universal State pension puts women in particular at a disadvantage, according to the equality agency Tasc (Think tank for Action on Social Change).
Director Paula Clancy highlighted the Department of Social and Family Affairs’ reversal of the decision to award pensions to farm spouses.
“Last year, the Government decided to award contributory pensions to farmers’ spouses if they made sufficient retrospective PRSI payments to qualify – payments which, in some cases, amounted to thousands of euro,” Ms Clancy said in a statement.
“Now, the Government claims that nearly 90 farm spouses granted a pension after making retrospective PRSI payments do not qualify after all. To add insult to injury, they have been asked to refund any pension payments to the Department of Social and Family Affairs,’’ she said.
However, the Minister for Family Affairs Mary Hanafin described this as an administrative error.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan acknowledged in the Dáil earlier this month that there was a difficulty with the issue. The initial advice of the Minister for Family Affairs was that the difficulty did not require legislative resolution. However, she is examining the matter further and if legislation is required she will bring it forward, he said.
Fine Gael Waterford TD John Deasy had raised the issue, demanding “legislative clarity”. He said that “the whole reason for establishing the scheme is the same reason they now want the money back.”
Under the scheme the person had to have paid one year’s contribution before reaching pension age. Some 85 people who failed to meet this condition received payment according to the Minister.
But Mr Deasy said “they’re disallowing these women because they had not made 52 contributions in their own name, when that phenomenon was the reason for the scheme in the first place”.
Ms Clancy said Tasc “has long argued that an adequate retirement income can only be secured through a comprehensive overhaul of our pension system.
“This would involve increasing and universalising the State pension – which would protect women, atypical workers and others with incomplete PRSI contribution records such as farm spouses – and introducing a social insurance earnings-related pension . . .”
