The Social Democrats have accused the Finance Minister of crying crocodile tears while failing to address punitive rules that mean tens of thousands of women are losing out on pensions payments.
The party’s joint leader Róisín Shortall TD said today:
“The Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has admitted it is ‘bonkers and unbelievable’ that women are losing out on pensions payments due to a 2012 change in the State pension eligibility rules.
“It is simply not good enough for him to cry crocodile tears after he chose in this week’s Budget to do nothing to address these punitive rules. The Minister has said he will move to a fairer pension regime by around 2021. If he was actually committed to that he would have started with Budget 2018 by investing the €60 million needed to right this wrong that is denying mainly women access to full state pensions.”
“Age Action has calculated that women are losing more than €1,500 a year on average. It is unacceptable that these women continue to be punished for leaving the workforce for a time to provide care work, or were forced out due to the marriage ban. In our Alternative Budget 2018, the Social Democrats committed to reversing the 2012 changes from mid-year 2018.”
ENDS
12 October 2017