Towards a fair pension for older women

Published: Monday, February 18, 2019

We continue to work to highlight the inequalities in the current state pension system and highlight areas of concern in future proposals for reform.

In November, we made a submission to the Department of Employment and Social Protection on their draft proposal to design a system to support employees to save for their retirement. We are concerned about the focus on supplementary pensions when attention needs to be paid to the state pension as the best guarantee for dignity and independence into older age for women.  The Department have indicated that their intention is to introduce an Automatic Enrolment scheme in 2022. 

Currently the Department is inviting older people to review their pensions under the Total Contributions Approach which includes up to 20 years of homecaring credits. This will benefit older women born after the 1st September 1946 who may have their pensions backdated to March 2018. 

We continue to call for justice for women born before the 1st September 1946 who were affected by the marriage bar and do not benefit from the homemakers scheme.