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GAZETTE
DECEMBER 1991
Equal Treatment, Married Women and
Social Welfare Rights
Directive 79/7/EEC on the progressive implementation of equal
treatment for men and women in matters of social security came
into force on 23 December, 1984. The Directive applies to the
working population and to retired or invalided workers and self-
employed persons.
1
It covers statutory schemes which provide
protection against sickness, invalidity, old age, accidents at work
and occupational diseases and unemployment; and also applies to
social assistance payments insofar as they are intended to
supplement or replace such schemes.
2
Article 4 of the Directive provides
that
"The principle of equal treat-
ment means that there shall be
no discrimination whatsoever on
grounds of sex either directly, or
indirectly by reference in
particular to marital or family
status, in particular as concerns:
• the scope of the schemes and
the conditions of access
thereto,
• the obligation to contribute
and the calculation of
contributions,
• the calculation of benefits
including increases due in
respect of a spouse and for
dependants and the condi-
tions governing the duration
and the
retention
of
entitlement to benefits."
Discrimination under the
Irish social welfare code:
Historically, married women living
with or being maintained by their
husbands had been treated less
favourably under the Irish social
welfare code than had married men
and single persons. At the time
when the Directive came into force
in 1984 several discriminatory
provisions remained in the social
welfare system. These included the
following:
1. Married women in receipt of
unemployment benefit, disability
benefit, invalidity pension, injury
benefit, disablement benefit and
unemployability supplement
received £5 less per week than
did married men and single
persons.
2. Married women received un-
employment benefit for only
twelve months as opposed to
fifteen months in the case of
most claimants.
3. A married man automatically
received increases for adult and
child dependants even where his
wife was not actually dependent
on him. However, a married
woman could only claim these
payments where the husband
was incapable of supporting
himself by reason of mental or
physical infirmity.
4. A married woman was only
entitled to the means tested
unemployment
assistance
where her husband was in-
capable of self-support.
The Irish Government did not
implement the Directive by the 23
December, 1984. In fact it was only
in the Social Welfare (No. 2) Act,
1985 that provision was made to
amend the discriminatory pro-
visions referred to above. Even then
these provisions did not come into
effect until May, 1986 as con-
cerned the lower rates of payment
and the shorter duration of
unemployment
benefit
3
and
November, 1986 as concerned the
dependant increases.
4
The rele-
vant provisions increased the rate
of payment for married women to
that received by other claimants
and increased the duration of
unemployment benefit for married
women to 15 months. The
legislation also provided that
payment of an increase in respect
of adult and child dependants was
I
Mel Cousins
by
Mel Cousins BL,
Administrator, FLAC.
to be limited to a situation where
actual dependency could be shown
irrespective of the sex of the
claimant.
5
This provision meant
that many married men in receipt of
social welfare payments were no
longer entitled to dependency in-
creases in respect of their wives and
that their child dependant increases
were reduced. Accordingly the
Minister for Social Welfare intro-
duced "transitional payments" to
these claimants to partially
compensate for the loss of the
dependency increases.
6
These
transitional payments were only
paid to married men.
McDermott & Cotter I:
7
In early 1985 two married women,
Ann Cotter and Norah McDermott,
who were affected by the dis-
criminatory provisions which
remained in force in Ireland in
relation to social welfare payments,
brought a case to the High Court
claiming that they were entitled to
be treated in the same way as
married men in the same position in
accordance with the EC Directive
regardless of the fact that Ireland
had not implemented the Directive
at that tima The High Court referred
this case to the European Court of
Justice for a preliminary ruling as to
whether the Directive had direct
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