NWCI campaigns for women’s pension equality

Published: Tuesday, October 17, 2017

At NWCI, we have been raising the issue of pension inequality for women for many years in conjunction with our membership and with the wider public. We made pensions a priority area for reform in our Pre-Budget 2018 Submission, and we launched this document at a briefing day with politicians where we emphasised the reality of pension inequality for women on a day-to-day basis.

We welcomed the increase in the State pension in budget 2018, however, we were disappointed that measures were not taken to address the indirect discrimination faced by women in the pension system. We know from our members that although women predominately rely on State pensions to provide an income in their older years, they have considerably less access to the full State pensions than men. Women’s access was further reduced through the introduction of new contributory bands in 2012. It is disappointing that Budget 2018 did not reverse these 2012 changes, which would have benefited women in particular.

This week, we are calling for the Social Welfare Bill to reverse the 2012 changes to pension bands, alongside our colleagues in Age Action and The Irish County Women’s Association (ICA). The Dáil will debate the issue with Private Members Business this week. 

Since Budget 2018 last week, NWCI has been inundated with calls from women, some of them who have only reached pension age and realised that they have limited or no entitlement to a State pension. Older women have waited long enough; the Government must use the Social Welfare Bill to reverse the 2012 changes.

Read our full response to Budget 2018.

Read our press release on the Social Welfare Bill.

Read our pre-budget 2018 submission.

Read about the briefing day with politicians in the run up to Budget 2018

Read about resources we developed to help women lobby for pension equality