Did women in Ireland need a guarantor to borrow money?

Salvadore said:
Nobody implied that but it adds context for those who are interested.
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My own grandmother had to resign from the civil service when she married in the 1950s. She was very pleased to cash in her pension early as it allowed her and my grandfather buy a house. She told me this several times.

Maybe she suffered from false consciousness at the time and for the following 70 years. Who knows?
 
It was normalised so no one thought anything about it. Doesn’t make it right, but until you stop and think about it and question it it never changes.

Didn’t mums get the children’s allowance… so why would they need to work? And that freed up a job for a family man.

Advancements in the civil service for women were rare, so no role models to encourage young junior staff to seek promotions. There was an assumption that they’d marry and leave so why promote them? You’d just have to replace them anyway… And if you saw yourself leaving soon why work your a$$ off to get promoted? And if you are in a junior role with poor pay childcare would take all your wages so you’d leave… vicious circle.

Distorted thinking by todays standards. Luckily things change.
 
I don't think that the children's allowance was paid to the father, it was very importantly paid to the woman. I remember my Mum going into the GPO to collect the allowance and then going across the road to Clery's to buy wool to knit jumpers for the winter. It was the only money my Mum received that she could decide what to spend it on.
 
The default was to the mother. And I remember mum would let it accumulate coming up to Christmas and also over the summer ready for the school return costs.
 
Child benefit was paid to the father from the 50s-70s. Topically, Nell McCafferty and the Irish women’s liberation movement pushed for the change which happened in 1974.

There was a lot of change in 73-75 between the EEC, the IWLM and the Lab/FG Cosgrave government with Corish in health/welfare. The dail debates for those years are informative.

www.oireachtas.ie

Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 14 Jun 1973

Committee on Finance. - Social Welfare Bill, 1973. Dáil Éireann debate - Thursday, 14 Jun 1973
www.oireachtas.ie

www.oireachtas.ie

Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 3 Apr 1974

Financial Statement. - Budget, 1974. Review of 1973. Dáil Éireann debate - Wednesday, 3 Apr 1974
www.oireachtas.ie
 
I did not realise that. Debates about the position of women in the home etc always referred to the fact that the state paid CB to mothers and I had assumed that it was always the case. Not as ´recent’ as 1974. I remember the inclusion of the first child, made a difference to lots of families.

I do recall the Women’s Liberation Movement, I was a young child and ´strident angry women’ was the dismissive term my father used. I suspect my mother admired them but would have stayed quiet,
 
I found this from a Seanad debate in 1999:

As a woman I had to go through the indignity of having my father or my husband act as guarantor for a bank loan. Those are the Dark Ages from which we are emerging but to which some would have us return. I am not having that.
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