Both my husband (age 74) and myself (64) are sensorily disabled since birth and had undertaken special schooling in different locations. My husband, despite being semi-illiterate, managed to obtain a 7-year apprenticeship, and obtained a trade, working for 46 years, for three employers. During his time of employment, he had been treated abominably by some of the supervisors and work colleagues due to his disability. Yet he persevered to work and save hard enough, along with myself, to purchase a house, car and pay for utilities, insurance (house, motor, health, life, etc.) When seeking a mortgage for our house, he was turned down by a bank, who assumed that he would not manage to keep up mortgage repayments due to his disability, despite a letter of reference from his employer, certifying his permanency of his job and employment history. Fortunately, my own building society approved our application for the mortgage - that was 40 years ago! Anyway, to cut the story short, we paid our dues and contributed to Irish society. When my husband reached his retirement age of 65, his employer's pension scheme folded up, leaving a very small pension for him, despite our appeal to the Pension Board. He draws the state pension. Then last year, I had to retire 2 years early - from public service after 20 years - for health reasons. All I receive is 97 euros fortnightly, plus illness benefit of 193 euros. Thankfully, the mortgage had been paid off many years ago. It was yesterday when I saw the television report displaying a young woman - lone parent - with five children, including a new-born child - granted a new house.
Why should, as Brendan Burgress said in his opening post on this thread, those who worked for over 40 years receive only 10 euros on contributory State pension more than those who would not make an effort to support oneself during his/her "working" (or should it be "welfare") years?