Minister Calleary secures government approval for Social Welfare (Bereaved Partner’s Pension) Bill

• Bill gives effect to the Supreme Court decision extending access to the Widow’s, Widower’s and Surviving Civil Partner’s Contributory Pension to qualifying cohabitants for the first time
• those who had lived together with their deceased partner for two years or more and had children together will qualify
• for those who did not have children together, they will qualify where they had lived together for five years or more
• Contributory Pension payments will be backdated to the date of the Supreme Court judgment on 22 January 2024
• access will also be provided for qualifying cohabitants to the Bereaved Parent’s Grant and the Bereaved Partners Non-Contributory Pension

The Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary has today secured government approval to introduce draft legislation that will implement the Supreme Court decision in the O’Meara case. This legislation, once passed, will provide access to the Bereaved Partner’s Contributory Pension for surviving qualified cohabitants.

The Bill proposes to extend eligibility to the payment to qualified cohabitants who are in an intimate and committed relationship for two years where there is a child or children of the relationship or five years if otherwise. This reflects the existing definition in Irish law for qualifying cohabitants.

Expanding eligibility for the payment to surviving cohabitants requires a number of other changes to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005. The Bill provides for these:

• there will be no time restrictions on when the bereavement of the qualified cohabitant occurred, provided the rules are met
• payments will commence from 22 January 2024 or later if the death is after this date
• the rules on when entitlement to the payment will permanently cease will be amended
• the same rules for eligibility for cohabitants will be applied to the other schemes such as the Non-Contributory version of the Pension, and the Widowed or Surviving Civil Partner Grant

Following today’s decision by Government, Minister Calleary commented:

The Widow’s, Widower’s or Civil Partner’s Contributory Pension (WCP) is a weekly payment to the husband, wife or civil partner of a deceased person.

Entitlement is based on either the claimant or their late spouse’s or civil partner’s social insurance record. All contributions must have been made before the death of the spouse or civil partner. The two records cannot be combined when calculating entitlement.

The current rates of payment, based on the number of contributions, are:

In order to qualify for WCP, one of the criteria under section 124 of Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 (the 2005 Act) is that a person must be a legal widow, widower, or surviving civil partner.

On 22 January 2024, in the O’Meara case, the Supreme Court overruled the High Court decision and found section 124 of the 2005 Act is inconsistent with the Constitution insofar as it excluded Mr O’Meara from the category of persons entitled to benefit from the payment.

The Court reached that conclusion on the basis of the equality guarantee contained in Article 40.1 of the Constitution.

The Supreme Court judgment recognised that resolving this issue required a legislative amendment. This Bill seeks to address this issue and other anomalies identified by the Court.