500,000 working women have no private pensions

ALMOST half a million working women have no private pensions to support them in their future years, it emerged yesterday.

Social Affairs Minister Seamus Brennan said the situation for those in part-time jobs was even worse with up to 95% of women without pensions. Speaking on International Women’s Day, Mr Brennan warned, unless pensions coverage improved significantly in the decades ahead, women would be forced to live poorer lives.

Mr Brennan has asked the Pensions Board to redouble their efforts to highlight the problem for women and to make every effort to encourage them to plan for an adequate income in their later years.

Also yesterday the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) unveiled its agenda for women in the current partnership talks. It addresses low pay for women workers, the low workforce participation of women over 30, pensions, childcare, the right to flexible working and additional paid leave entitlements.

Joanne Delaney, the Mandate shop steward who recently won her battle for reinstatement after being sacked by Dunnes stores for wearing a union badge at work, was among those at the reception.

An Cosán, the Tallaght West-based community centre which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, said lack of childcare is still the biggest barrier for women breaking out of poverty.

An Cosán director Liz Waters said things were improving and the State had made significant investment in childcare, but it frustrated them that they were still talking about affordable childcare for all as an aspiration. “We believe that early education should be a basic right for children in a wealthy country like Ireland and a basic right for parents trying to improve the lives of their children,” she said.

Meanwhile, businesswoman and adventurer Caroline Casey yesterday urged women to remember that if they can’t change their fate, they can always change their attitude. “We all have the potential as women to change the way things are,” Ms Casey said at a women’s leadership celebration to mark International Women’s Day in Dublin organised by the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI). Ms Casey, 34, who is founder of the Aisling Foundation and the O2 Ability, said she always wanted to make a difference in the way people thought of disability. “I want people to look beyond the disability and see the person. And while I don’t like to differentiate between men and women, I have been absolutely amazed to discover that most of the leading lights in the not-for-profit sector are women,” she said.

Five years ago Ms Casey, who has a visual impairment, trekked 1,000km across India on an elephant to raise awareness of what people with a disability can achieve. At the moment she is involved in a soon to be launched international project in India called “400 million Are” that will focus on the millions of people with a disability in the developing world.

Since being voted Irish Young Global leader at the World Economic Forum Ms Casey has joined more than 200 civic and cultural leaders under the age of 40 from 50 countries charged with the task of formulating a positive vision for the world in 2020.