Pensions anomaly needs to be addressed

THERE are huge amounts of research and funding devoted to issues of deprivation, discrimination and positive ageing. However, I do not know whether anyone is campaigning against an anomaly in present pension policy.

Since 1994, the Government has recognised the homemaker, defined as a person who lives with and cares for a child under 12, or who lives with and provides full-time care and attention for an incapacitated person. This is valued as ‘work’ when a contributory pension is to be applied for. But what about homemakers before 1994 who are only entitled to the non-contributory pension which is means tested and any additional income capped?

I have two examples of women ineligible for the post-1994 arrangement. One was in waged employment in the 1940s and early 1950s when stamps were not compulsory. She then got married and was homemaker to her children, who by 1994 had long passed the age of 12. She is only entitled to the non-contributory pension, and is means tested.

The other woman had stamps for her pre-marital waged work; she too became a full-time homemaker for her children before 1994. She was eligible for a reduced contributory pension but prefers to take the non-contributory pension which is of greater value to her even though it is means tested.

Neither of these women is entitled to full pension without a means-test because their work in the home was prior to 1994. Pre-‘94 homemaking is deemed to have no value, while post-‘94 homemaking is recognised and rewarded. Please, is there no politician or NGO member who can find the solution to this discriminatory contradiction, so that our older women can at least exist with some degree of justice and dignity, to say nothing of their quality of life?

There is also the issue of poverty among the elderly in rural area, where elderly men have devoted years of their lives looking after aged parents, and they too are only allowed the non-contributory pension with means test.

Margaretta D’Arcy,

St Bridget’s Senior Citizens Group,

10 St Bridget’s Place Lower,

Galway.