{"id":420143,"date":"2026-01-19T22:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/420143\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:34:07","slug":"states-refusal-of-spouses-pension-unconstitutional-court-finds-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/420143\/","title":{"rendered":"State\u2019s refusal of spouse\u2019s pension unconstitutional, court finds \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The State\u2019s refusal to provide a man who lived with his late partner for almost 25 years with a spouse\u2019s pension<\/a> is unconstitutional, the High Court<\/a> has ruled.<\/p>\n

Freddie Jones brought a High Court action against the Minister for Public Expenditure arguing that he was discriminated against by the State\u2019s refusal to allow him benefit from his late partner\u2019s contributions to a Civil Service pension scheme. <\/p>\n

The Minister had denied Mr Jones a spouse\u2019s pension under the Civil Service Spouses\u2019 and Children\u2019s Contributory Pension Scheme, on the basis that the scheme does not provide an entitlement for a person to benefit from the scheme if they are not married or in a civil partnership with their partner, the contributor to the scheme. <\/p>\n

Mr Jones had lived for almost 25 years with his partner James Kingston, a lawyer and senior civil servant, in an \u201cintimate, committed relationship\u201d prior to the latter\u2019s death in 2022.<\/p>\n

Mr Jones argued that the pensions scheme, in denying him the benefits of Mr Kingston\u2019s contributions to the scheme, was inconsistent with article 40.1 of Bunreacht na h\u00c9ireann, which provides that all citizens are held as equal before the law. <\/p>\n

He submitted the pension scheme treated him less fairly than another individual in a comparable situation who was married to or in a civil partnership with their late partner. <\/p>\n

In a judgment published on Monday, Mr Justice Cian Ferriter said a key question in the case related to the \u201crelevance and legitimacy\u201d of the alleged discrimination in reference to the objective of the pension scheme. <\/p>\n

The judge said the objective of the scheme is to provide a benefit to the surviving life partner of the scheme contributor, to allow them to meet the financial support which would otherwise have been provided by the contributor to their partner when alive. <\/p>\n

The judge said that for this purpose, there is \u201cno difference\u201d in the social function between a surviving spouse or civil partner and a surviving cohabitant. <\/p>\n

The judge said it was \u201cnot rational to differentiate or discriminate\u201d between a surviving spouse or civil partner and a surviving cohabitant when viewed against the objective of the pension scheme. <\/p>\n

The judge concluded that it seemed to him Mr Jones was entitled to a court declaration that the State\u2019s refusal to provide him with a spouse\u2019s pension was incompatible with the Constitution. <\/p>\n

In a press statement, Liam Herrick, the chief commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission<\/a> (IHREC), welcomed Mr Justice Ferriter\u2019s findings. IHREC was a notice party to the action. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis judgment is an important affirmation of the constitutional principle of equality before the law. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe court found here that there is no difference in social function between a surviving spouse\/civil partner and a surviving qualified cohabitant for the purposes of accessing the Civil Service Spouses\u2019 and Children\u2019s Contributory Pension Scheme,\u201d Mr Herrick said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The State\u2019s refusal to provide a man who lived with his late partner for almost 25 years with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,3683,176142,9611,131,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-420143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-high-court","13":"tag-irish-human-rights-and-equality-commission","14":"tag-pension","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}