I thank the Chair for the opportunity to raise this important matter for tens of thousands of Irish women. The implementation of European Community regulations on equalisation of social welfare is complex and it has been the subject of several court cases in both the Irish courts and the European Court. The Department of Social Welfare is now using that complexity in an attempt to deprive tens of thousands of women of substantial payments to which they are entitled under EC rules. The action of the Department is forcing many women to employ solicitors to secure their rights and allowing the legal profession to earn fat fees in the process. The Department of Social Welfare is implementing some of the findings of the European Court on this issue and is making payments of arrears of certain benefits to women in three phases for the period December 1984 to November 1986 and has made a reasonable effort to alert women who qualify for these benefits. These payments are not the issue and the Department is trying to use those payments to convince the public that all of the requirements of equalisation are being met. This is not the case.
A separate case was taken on behalf of two Irish women, Anne Cotter and Nora McDermott, claiming that they were also entitled to the alleviation payments which had been operated between 1986 and 1992 but which had been paid to men only. The matter was referred by the Irish courts to the European Court, which found is favour of the two women in a judgment on 13 March 1991. It referred the matter back to the Supreme Court, but the Government settled the case on 6 June of that year before the Supreme Court could consider it and paid the two women in question.
It clearly follows that if Anne Cotter and Nora McDermott had a valid case and were entitled to alleviation payments, tens of thousands of women in similar circumstances are also entitled to these payments. However, since then the Department had done nothing to make other women in similar circumstances aware that they may qualify for these payments and has done everything possible to withhold information. The Department is only paying up where solicitors acting on behalf of qualifying women threaten or initiate legal action. I understand hat around 2,000 women in Dublin and 800 in Cork have already received arrear payments where solicitors have intervened on their behalf. In some cases he payments are reported to have been as much as £6,000, but information is hard to come by as a condition of the payment has been that women will not disclose the amount paid.
Earlier this week I pointed out that what amounted to a mini-industry for the legal profession had grown up around the claims with solicitors from Dublin and Cork advertising regularly in the evening newspapers offering to take cases on behalf of women who qualify for the arrears. Let me give one example from the Evening Herald last week headed “Equality Payments” which stated that married women in receipt of social welfare benefits between 1984 and 1992 should seek legal advice on their entitlements. It listed a free telephone number to contact.
I am also in possession of a letter from a firm of solicitors to a woman who responded to one of these advertisements. The letter asks the women to sign an authorisation allowing it to act on her behalf and states:
In the event of our being successful we will be looking for fees based on the amount we collect. If we collect £2,000 we will be looking for £200 plus VAT at 21 per cent. If it was £4,000 we would be looking for twice that. In the unlikely event that we were not successful we would not be looking for any fees.
The veil of secrecy which the Minister for Social Welfare has attempted to draw over the payments makes a mockery of the commitments given in the Programme openness" and "improving public accountability, transparency and trust". It is not just women who may qualify for arrears who have been denied information, Members of this House have also been denied it. For instance, when my cloleague, Deputy McManus, tabled a detailed question on 12 May last asking for the number of women who had applied for and received payments - and the average amounts paid - the Minister failed to supply the information. Again, as a public representative and a Member of Dáil Éireann, I demand to know how many women have applied for and received alleviation payments due to them and the average amount paid in each case.
The treatment of women entitled to these arrears, particularly the attempts to keep them in the dark, is an outrage. What is the value of having a Minister for Equality and Law Reform if he turns a blind eye to women still being treated as second class citizens? Is this the best that the Labour Party can achieve in Government, especially when it has a Minister of State at the Department of Social Welfare who claims to be particularly committed to the rights to women?
The attempts to effectively defraud women of their entitlements are failing. More and more are discovering that they Council for the Status of Women yesterday followed my radio and television interviews with a statement demanding that the Department pays up. The Minister should now accept that he will not get away with it. He should be honest, live up to our commitments as a member of the European Community and start paying. Failure to do so would only make more money for solicitors and may even leave this country open to further embarrassment at European level.
