Labour’s Alan Kelly has urged Government TDs in Tipperary to push for the fast tracking of legislation to provide rights to cohabiting couples living in the county.
The Labour Party is running a long standing campaign for this anomaly in the legislation to be addressed to provide social protection to grieving partners in cohabiting couples. The former party leader Alan Kelly supported Toomevara man Johnny O’Meara until he won his Supreme Case just over a year ago. Mr O’Meara’s partner died but he was initially refused a widower’s pension because the couple were not married. The couple had three children at the time of Michelle’s death due to cancer and had been together for 20 years. Deputy Kelly highlights that if a couple is cohabiting, the Department of Social Protection will assess both of their means when carrying out a means test for a social assistance payment like job seekers allowance or carer’s allowance.Yet it doesn’t provide any guarantee to contributory social protection payments like the widowers’ pension when one of them dies.
The Party has introduced legislation – The Bereaved Partner’s Pension Bill. This has been marked as a priority bill for Spring 2025 by this Government leading Deputy Kelly to ask all Government TDs in Tipperary to push for this legislation to be fast tracked. “The current system fails to protect those who choose not to marry or those who simply haven’t formalised their partnership” according to Deputy Kelly.
