Taoiseach urged to intervene to end hunger strike

The Taoiseach has been urged to help end a hunger strike by a 68-year-old Kildare woman who won a long battle to clear her name of involvement in the Northern Bank Robbery but now cannot get the state pension.

Kathryn Nelson lost her career after she was arrested in connection with the 2004 robbery in which €39m was stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast. Now living in Laois, she has supported herself through a defamation award she received from a newspaper which branded her an IRA gang member after her arrest but says she is now penniless.

She applied for the state pension but the fact that she spent most of her career abroad has complicated her claim. She ran out of time in responding to requests to provide further information and now has to appeal a decision to refuse her claim.