The Social Welfare system is still based on the model of the male breadwinner, and does not recognise women as adults in their own right, the National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI)claimed yesterday.
Launching their inaugural campaign to reform the social welfare system in Killarney, the council said the casual, seasonal and part-time nature of women's employment fails them "in significant ways".
Women who have spent their lives caring for children are facing old age with little access to adequate pensions because they have given up paid work or have engaged in part-time employment to look after others, the seminar attended by 15 women's groups from Cork and Kerry was told.
In 2002 only 25 per cent of women got a State pension based on their own PRSI contributions. This compared with 67 per cent of men.
In certain categories such as farming and where women are carers and involved in a family business, the percentage who have no personal pension is as high as 90 per cent and more.
Because the social welfare system reinforced their dependence on spouses, women can find themselves locked into violent and bullying relationships.
Ninety-five per cent of "qualified adults", that is those claimed for by other adults receiving welfare support, are women. The women in this category receive 70 per cent of the full adult social welfare entitlements available to men in their households and in most cases even this qualified allowance is not paid directly to them, but to their husband.
This means that women are dependant on their husbands to survive. "That dependence stops people from leaving difficult relationships, " Ms Martha Hannan of the NWCI said.
Women need to be paid 100 per cent of the full qualified adult rate and they need to be paid the money directly, she said.
The NWCI has consulted with 165 of its affiliate groups in formulating its campaign policy on social welfare reform. It is calling for homemakers' work from 1973 onwards, when the ban on married women working in the civil service ended, to be recognised for the purposes of pension and wants homemakers' credits to be introduced.
It wants an end to the household means test for the carer's allowance because women do not have access to their own money in all households, and unemployment benefit should be available to people looking for part-time work.