Debate contribution: State Pension Access: Terminally Ill People

Debate contribution by Mrs Linda Dillon on 31 March 2025.

MLA

Mrs Linda Dillon

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

31 March 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

State Pension Access: Terminally Ill People

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4872091

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

I thank the Minister for being here. The motion has a straightforward ask, which is that our Communities Minister supports the campaign that Marie Curie has led to ask the British Government to legislate to allow those with terminal diagnoses to have early access to their state pension. The motion speaks to the heart of compassion and dignity for people who have been given a terminal diagnosis. Earlier, upstairs in room 115, Marie Curie held an event with pharmacists to discuss "daffodil standards" for pharmacy, which relate to palliative care patients. If our community pharmacists, GPs and front-line workers can give those who are potentially in the last months of life some dignity and look after them, the least that we can expect from the British Government is to do likewise. People with terminal illness and their families should not be forced to endure the added burden of financial hardship as they approach the end of their lives. The system needs to support them, not abandon them. Across these islands, we like to think of ourselves as a compassionate society that cares for people in their final days, but, right now, the reality is far from that. People who have worked all their lives, paid into the system, raised families and paid taxes are being told that, despite facing a terminal diagnosis, they must wait until pension age to access the very support that they have contributed to. That is indefensible and is why we are proposing the motion today. Marie Curie's recent report 'Dying in Poverty' paints a harrowing picture. It reveals that, every year, about 2,500 people across the North die in poverty, with one in four terminally ill people of working age dying below the poverty line. Behind those numbers are human beings — mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children — who should spend their final months surrounded by family, not worrying about how to heat their homes or put food on the table.

Let me be clear: it is a political choice. If the British Government can find billions for bombs and weapons, they can find the relatively small amount needed to ensure that terminally ill people do not die in poverty but can access the pension that they have worked for all their life. Marie Curie has shown that allowing terminally ill people early access to the state pension would cost just 0·1% of the state pension budget; in other words, it is entirely affordable. Not only is it affordable, but it is happening elsewhere. Similar schemes exist in France, Germany and Italy, and, in the rest of Ireland, a disability pension can be accessed. Those Governments recognise that people at the end of life should not be punished by bureaucracy but protected by it. For that reason, the motion asks the Communities Minister to engage directly with the British Government to support the Marie Curie campaign. At a time when the British Government are attacking access to benefits for those who are sick and disabled, we need them to take the lead on the issue. We cannot excuse inaction, and it must not prevent us from raising our voices and advocating change. I acknowledge the important work of my colleague, former Minister for Communities Deirdre Hargey, who took decisive action during her time in office to extend access to the personal independence payment (PIP) for people diagnosed with a terminal illness. That significant and compassionate intervention made a real difference in people's lives. We need to build on the foundations laid by Deirdre. Her work showed what is possible when a Government put people first. It is our responsibility to continue that work and to go further in ensuring that terminally ill people are treated with dignity and have the financial security that they deserve right to the end. As the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, we talk about the right to live, but we must also talk about the "right to die with dignity". That dignity is found not in spreadsheets or statistics but in how we treat people when they are at their most vulnerable. It is in whether we choose to stand by them or turn away, and, right now, too many are being failed by a British Government who have little in the way of a moral and compassionate approach to people anywhere across these islands. The Health Committee inquiry into palliative care has already highlighted significant gaps between the policy approach to palliative care in the Twenty-six Counties and the lack of policy, strategy and funding for people with palliative care and end-of-life needs in the North. The British Government have an opportunity to narrow the poverty gap for people at the end of life. Today, I call on the Minister for Communities to engage directly with the Department for Work and Pensions to press the British Government to make the necessary legislative and administrative changes to allow early access to the state pension for those with a terminal diagnosis. We must speak with one voice in support of those who are too often unheard. It is about doing what is right: ensuring that we look after those with a terminal diagnosis, their families and the people whom they love. It is about ensuring that people spend their final months not in stress, fear and poverty but in peace, dignity and security. Let us call on the British Government to show real compassion and act on that compassion. I urge the Minister to take that message directly to the British Government. I acknowledge that it is not something that you are able to do within your budget, which is why Marie Curie is carrying out its campaign across these islands and has brought it to Westminster. I ask you, Minister, to do the same.

969 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:16 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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