Equality Case by Norah Mc Dermott
Published: Thursday, December 09, 2010
On further consultation with our barrister we decided to appeal the High Court decision. This appeal was heard in Supreme Court. This court decided that the case should be referred once again to the European Court of Justice for consideration and this took place in Luxembourg in October, 1990. This case is unique in that it is the only case that has had two hearings in Europe. Again his Court ruled in our favour and we got word of this in March 1991. We had again won our case in respect of adult dependants, transitional payments, and child dependants' rates.
In the Supreme Court in Ireland on 12th April 1991, it was agreed that the European Court Judgement had resolved the issue. We were to attend the Supreme Court on 5th June to finalise the case. In the week before our case we met our barrister and junior council and our solicitors Gallagher and Shatter to arrive at a settlement rather than go back to the Supreme Court. This we did on the following agreement:
1. The state to pay us a sum we discussed in settlement of all outstanding issues, without admission of liability.
2. The state to pay all cost of High Court, European Court and Supreme Court.
3. The sum paid not to be disclosed by or on behalf of either side.
This we agreed and the case closed on 5th June, 1991. It was a six and a half year battle, but a very worthwhile one for us.
Our question at the time was if all married women would benefit and we were assured that the European Judgement could be relied upon by all married women in the state. It took a further 3 years before the Department of Social Welfare did the honourable thing and decided to pay the married women all they were owed. At the moment thousands of women are getting major sums of money plus interest due on the monies held over the years and by 1997 all arrears should be paid.
For myself and Ann Cotter this was a wonderful achievement as so many people benefitted from it. This case has gone down in the history books of Ireland and Europe. Theses have been written on the case, most newspapers, magazines and books have done stories on same. From having been involved on the case I have come in line for awards - Kildare person of the year '92 - M'lady Erin Winner in '93 and Civic Award from Leixlip Town Commission.