asked the Minister for Social Welfare if he is aware of the hardship that arises when an old age pensioner dies leaving a widow under 67 years who is not entitled to retain the benefit of free television and travel and electricity allowances which she enjoyed when her husband was living; and the action he proposes to take in the matter.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Allowance Retention Proposals.
17.
I am not aware that the situation which the Deputy describes is in general a source of hardship.
The free travel, free electricity allowance and free television licence schemes were introduced for the benefit of persons in receipt of a social welfare type old age pension. Subsequently the free travel scheme was extended to cover all persons, whether in receipt of a pension or not, of pensionable age. As announced in the recent budget statement, the pensionable age will be reduced from 67 to 66 years from October next. As the Deputy is no doubt aware, it was announced at the same time that the schemes here in question will be extended to cover persons in receipt of an invalidity pension from the Department of Social Welfare as well as recipients of disabled persons maintenance allowance.
No further extension of the coverage of these schemes is at present contemplated.
Would the Parliamentary Secretary agree that the question exposes an anomaly? Perhaps I could give a quick example of a woman of 64 years who is left a widow. Her husband was in receipt of a pension, and so on, and during the course of the marriage she enjoyed all the benefits and entitlements of free travel, free electricity, free TV. Suddenly the husband dies and she is left without the enjoyment of a number of these entitlements. This seems grossly unfair. I received very strong representations on this matter and, no doubt, the Parliamentary Secretary received the same representations from the same associations.
I said that in general I do not agree there is hardship. There could possibly be hardship in the case cited by the Deputy. On the other hand, I could cite the case of a woman under 40 years of age who could be left the widow of an old age pensioner. In present circumstances, it would not be reasonable to extend these facilities in that type of case. I cannot accept that general hardship is imposed because of the present position.
My question deals with widows who cannot fend adequately for themselves. In certain circumstances consideration should be given to these people. Widows appear to be given the status of second-class citizens. It seems to me grossly unfair that in this situation widows are not given consideration.
Brevity. Order.
There is no point in the Parliamentary Secretary giving the example of the woman under 40 years of age. We should be concerned with the woman over 55 or 60 years of age who is possibly living on her own.
I was replying to the example the Deputy gave. A more practical example would be the fact that when this Government took office the pensionable age was 70 years. Next October it will be 66 years. Substantial progress has been made in that regard.
Regardless of age one way or the other, is it not rather anomalous, as has been pointed out by the questioner, that somebody who had this benefit while the spouse was alive should be left without it later on? Surely there can be no justification for that, regardless of what age the widow might be, If she was entitled to benefit while her spouse was alive, surely she is even more entitled to benefit after his death. Would that not appear to be rational?
I would not think so, so far as free travel is concerned. Very considerable progress has been made in a number of these areas. It is not possible to cure all the neglect of a long number of years in this area in a comparatively short period of time.