Widow wins ex-husband’s pension

A woman is entitled to pension rights from the employment of her late ex-husband as director of an authority which awarded third-level education qualifications, the High Court has ruled.

Margaret McDermott, 88, was married to Padraig MacDiarmada, founding director of the National Council for Educational Awards, which later became the Higher Education Training and Education Awards Council.

They divorced in 2003 and he remarried. He died in 2009, his second wife having predeceased him.