The special pension arrangements being made for a High Court judge should be extended, in an appropriate fashion, to women who had been disadvantaged in the past by the employment marriage bar, Mr David Norris (Ind) contended. He had received correspondence from a number of women, one of whom had complained that discrimination still existed against older women, who, having endured the marriage bar and later the age bar when they tried to get back into paid employment, were now facing the pension bar, which was exactly what was happening in the case of Mr Justice Feargus Flood. Mr Norris was speaking in the debate on the Court (Supplemental Provisions) (Amendment) Bill, which provides that Judge Flood will qualify for full pension on one-half of salary when he reaches the retirement age of 72 on July 9th.
Mr Norris said it was appropriate that the judge should be afforded special pension treatment because he had done the State some great service. However, a range of parallel anomalies should also be addressed, because women who had been subjected to the marriage bar were in an analagous position.
He read a number of letters from women who said they had had to retire from their employments in the 1950s because of the bar. The Minister of State for Justice, Ms Mary Wallace, said Mr Norris had raised an important issue, but it was not relevant to the Bill.
Explaining the reason for the Bill, she said the judge was a little over six years short of the necessary 15 years' service which would have entitled him to a full pension. She said they were talking a very unique situation. Instead of taking up his retirement in the normal way, the judge had agreed, in the public interest, to continue to chair a very important tribunal of inquiry. She was sure that all sides of the House would agree that the Flood tribunal had carried out its work in an exemplary manner.