U-turn on state pension a kick in the teeth for farmers’ wives

IT has been described as illegal, immoral and a kick in the teeth for elderly people.

But the scandal surrounding a decision by the Department of Social Protection to backtrack on paying farmers’ wives state pensions is, above all, a story of injustice.

Hundreds of elderly women, who have spent most of their working lives labouring on farms through frosty mornings and late evenings, now face hefty bills for thousands of euro because the department got it wrong.

Many elderly, retired, women fear they may face jail.

The married farming couples were encouraged to sign up to a government business partnership scheme in 2008, under which spouses were awarded pensions once their full PRSI quotas were paid up.

Many complied, paying PRSI lump sums, to the state and were rewarded with retrospective pension payment cheques, some for tens of thousands of euro.

Delighted and, at the same time, surprised by the lucrative back payments, many spouses put the newly-received funds into the family home or farm while others gave it to their grown offspring.

But the new-found bonus to their retirement came crashing down when, in January last, the department contacted the spouses.

Their weekly pension payments of €240 were cut off. But even worse was the demand by officials in the department that the farming wives return what pensions they had been collecting, as well as the retrospective lump sums many had received in the post.

For Margaret and Christopher Ryan, the department decree has not only left them shocked after 46 years of running their Wexford farm but at a loss as to how they can repay the near €44,000 that must be returned to the state.

Margaret, 71, explained: “The day I got the pension I was delighted. I had something for myself, I was really happy about it and I said I have my little bit of independence now, I can treat the grandchildren or do whatever I want with it.”

Margaret was then paid €19,875 in back payments and collected her pension for nearly two years up until January 12 this year, the day a letter came from the department.

“I read it and I read it again and again and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I was shocked and disappointed and angry.

“We’re going to do whatever it takes to get it back... but it’s not a good place to be at 71 years of age. You don’t want hassle like this. I’m not a person to be out in the public, I did my work, I had my few friends and play my few games of cards and that is my lifestyle.”

Margaret qualified as a nurse in 1960 but after five years turned to full-time work on the farm with her husband. The work was demanding – especially while trying to rear two children.

“You’d get up in the morning sometimes at 6am and milk the cows, clean up the yards, come back in and make lunches and get children out to school and then in the afternoon you’d start the milking again.

“On a winter’s morning, you’d be trying to thaw out the machines with the frost and snow. And you’d have to go and do it.”

At one stage the 99-acre farm had 50 cattle as well as calves but the farming couple have left the dairy sector and moved onto tillage and dry stock.

Husband Christopher said he was very angry by the department’s decision to stop his wife’s pension.

Under the joint business partnership scheme, she had signed up as an owner in the farm and this meant now she would be unlikely to be able to reclaim her state dependency allowance.

“She was born and bred in Ireland and yet she has no rights here whatsoever now. She’s no right to any pension whatsoever.”

Up to 268 elderly farming wives have been affected by the department u-turn.

The Irish Farmers’ Association say the state would only have to pay €570,000 a year to applicants to honour the pledge.

The department says the u-turn was down to an “administrative error” because under the scheme women who have not paid at least one year’s PRSI before the age of 66 are not eligible for the pension.