Council backs 1950s women ahead of pension protest

Derry City and Strabane District Council has expressed solidarity with thousands of women affected by the abrupt and ongoing rapid equalisation of the state pension age for men and women ahead of a proposed day of action tomorrow.
Pensions.Pensions.
Pensions.

Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) will stage a protest outside the Guildhall at 11.30am on Friday as part of a campaign to ensure women's pensions are a live election issue in two weeks.

This afternoon, inside the Guildhall, councillors pledged their support, saying the pace of change for women who had believed they would receive the state pension at 60, was too fast and unfair.

SDLP Councillor Martin Reilly raised the matter at the council's May meeting on Thursday.

He proposed that "the Council calls upon the UK Government to make fair transitional state pension arrangements for all women born on or after 6th April 1951, who have unfairly borne the burden of the increase to the State Pension Age (SPA) with lack of appropriate notification" and that it "calls upon the Government to reconsider transitional arrangements for women born on or after 6th April 1951, so that women do not live in hardship due to pension changes they were not told about until it was too late to make alternative arrangements".

The motion was approved unanimously.