Co-habiting but not married: Death of partner brought a realisation ‘we weren’t considered a family’

It was only after Maria Doyle’s partner, Alan Keely, died suddenly in May 2021 and she was refused the State grant to help with the costs of his funeral that she began to realise the extent to which their decision not to marry was going to affect her and their children.

Alan was just 38, a fit and apparently healthy former semi-professional footballer who had gone for a lie-down after an early shift as a postal worker when a clot in his lung caused his death. His then 15-year-old daughter Mia and eight-year-old son Daniel were at home with him at the time.

“It was a terrible shock for us all but then when I tried to get my affairs in order, I went to apply for the funeral grant but was told I didn’t qualify. Then I looked into the widow’s pension and found I wasn’t entitled to that either. Then I started looking at the Constitution, reading the definitions in it, that the family is based on marriage. So basically, I realised at that point that we weren’t considered a family.

We were together for almost 20 years, we had two children, were tied to the mortgage, had our joint bank account

“We weren’t religious and we were content,” says Ms Doyle of the couple’s decision not to marry. “We weren’t anti-marriage. I actually had the forms in the drawer, just for tax reasons, but we were committed. We were together for almost 20 years, we had two children, were tied to the mortgage, had our joint bank account and [were] madly in love. Marriage just didn’t seem important. We didn’t know about this law.”

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The pair managed childcare between them because they largely worked different hours but when Maria approached the retailer for whom she worked and asked to change her hours to enable her cope with suddenly changed circumstances, they said they couldn’t facilitate her and so she had to leave her job.

And the money’s just not enough. We went from two incomes to no income, basically. And I’ve used all my savings

“The pension would have been about €300 so that could have helped with childcare and I could have continued to work. Instead, I was told the only thing I could apply for was job seekers’ transitional payments. So now I have to go to Alan’s place of employment and queue up in front of all his colleagues to get it every week.

“And the money’s just not enough. We went from two incomes to no income, basically. And I’ve used all my savings. We’re getting there [coping with the emotional loss] but money is always an issue.”

About 150,000 couples in the State are co-habiting but not married with about half having children, according to Treoir, an organisation that campaigns for parents who are not married. Forty-three per cent of children born in the State last year were to unmarried parents, according to chief executive Damien Peelo.