Landmark ruling overturns decision refusing man a widower’s pension because he had never married long-term partner

A man refused the widower’s contributory pension because he never married his late long-term partner has won a landmark Supreme Court appeal overturning the decision.

The court ruled that John O’Meara from Nenagh, Co Tipperary, is entitled to the benefit and unanimously granted an order quashing the 2021 decision to deny him the pension.

The court found that section 124 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act Act 2005 – as amended by s. 17(4) of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2010 – was invalid having regard to the provisions of the constitution insofar abecause it does not extend to Mr O’Meara as a parent of his three children.

Mr O’Meara and his three children had launched an appeal against the refusal by the Social Protection Minister to grant the pension following the death of Michelle Batey, who was Mr O’Meara’s partner of about 20 years and the children’s mother.

The appeal came before a hearing of a seven-judge Supreme Court, which ended in October last year.

Mr O’Meara, an agricultural contractor, and Ms Batey eventually planned to marry, but she fell into a coma and died in January 2021 after contracting Covid-19 when she was recovering from breast cancer, the court was told.

Mr O’Meara’s’ senior counsel, Derek Shortall, had submitted that the High Court was wrong to conclude the Widower’s (Contributory) Pension is designed to provide for the needs only of a surviving spouse.

The benefit, said Mr Shortall, had more than one purpose and was clearly meant to provide for children, because it increased per additional dependent child. Seemingly one of only two benefits requiring marriage, this social welfare payment “appears to be an outlier” in having the effect of excluding children, he said.

There ess no difference between a marital and non-marital family in this context because Mr O’Meara had “essentially the same obligations” to his children as a widower would have, he said.

“The blanket exclusion of this parent, these children, this family is essentially based on prejudice and stereotype,” he said.

Opposing the claims on behalf of the State, Attorney General Rossa Fanning began his submissions by acknowledging the very sad loss of Ms Batey, which has given rise to the constitutional challenge.

Ultimately, he said, the case before the court was a narrow one: “Is the Oireachtas entitled, as a matter of policy choice, to provide a social welfare benefit to surviving spouses of a marriage that it does not provide to surviving cohabitees?”

In the case of the widower’s pension, he said, the sharp distinction was “entirely consistent” with the constitution, particularly considering article 41.3, which “commits the State to guard with special care the institution of marriage, on which the family is founded, and to protect it against attack”.

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