Ó Cuív U-turn on farm spouse pension welcomed

OPPOSITION PARTIES and the Irish Farmers’ Association have welcomed a Government U-turn on the payment of pensions to farm spouses.

Minister for Social and Family Affairs Éamon Ó Cuív announced yesterday that he was rescinding an earlier decision to withdraw or reduce contributory pensions to farm spouses, most of them women, who had paid PRSI retrospectively in order to qualify for contributory pensions.

The announcement followed a review by department officials and legal advice from the Attorney General.

In January, his predecessor, Mary Hanafin, said the granting of the pensions to the women arose from an administrative error which was an “awful mistake”.

In 2008, the Government agreed to award contributory pensions to farmers’ spouses if they made sufficient retrospective PRSI payments. Hundreds of spouses availed of the service and received a contributory pension.

Last January, however, the decision was reversed.

Recipients of the pension received letters stating their pension entitlements were being disallowed, as they did not in fact qualify for the scheme. Pension payments immediately ceased, and recipients were instructed by the Government to pay back any money they had already received.

Some of those affected staged a sit-in in the department’s offices in Dublin last month and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Social and Family Affairs expressed opposition to the move.

Announcing his change of mind yesterday, Mr Ó Cuív said the decision would be backdated to the date on which State pensions were withdrawn or reduced and all arrears due would be paid. Overpayments would no longer be sought. Applications received or applications refused before December 31st, 2009, would be dealt with under the legislation applying at that time. This process would be completed within the next four weeks. Applications received from January 1st, 2010, would be processed under current legislation.

“I am delighted that, based on further legal advice, it has been possible to make this decision. I am aware of the distress this issue was causing and I am pleased that the matter has now been brought to a satisfactory conclusion,” the Minister said.

IFA president John Bryan welcomed the restoration of pensions to elderly farm women. He described Mr Ó Cuív’s decision as “the mark of a caring Minister who was not prepared to stand over the injustice that had been done to these women whose pensions were taken away in January”.

Labour’s agriculture spokesman Seán Sherlock described the decision as a victory for common sense. “The move to withdraw this pension from the wives of farmers was completely retrograde and sexist in that it refused to recognise the role of women as equal partners in the running of a farm.”

Under the scheme, a person had to have paid one year’s contribution before reaching pension age. A spokeswoman for the department said 84 pensions had been stopped and 16 reduced, while the cost of reinstating them was about €250,000 for the year to date.