There has been a major breakthrough in the case of a woman in Laois who been on hunger strike since October 24.
Kathryn Nelson, who is originally from Athy, has been living in Clough, Ballacolla, for about the last year and has been refusing to eat as she couldn’t get the state pension.
However, former Labour TD Joe Costello has exclusively revealed to LaoisToday that there was a major development yesterday and she will now receive the non-contributory pension.
He said: “As of yesterday, the Department informed me that Kathryn will now receive the non-contributory state pension.
“I would expect her first payment to be in her bank account today which is great news.”
However, it’s not all good news as the 68-year-old was taken into Portlaoise Hospital on Wednesday.
She was unable to take her medicine for various ailments since she went on hunger strike.
She has fell in her home in Clough on a number of occasions and is now too weak to get out of bed without assistance.
Labour TD Costello said: “Unfortunately, I think she is still continuing on her hunger strike.
“She feels she has been very wronged by things that have happened in the past and although she has now got her pension, she still has many other grievances.”
Nelson wrote to the Taoiseach Leo Vardkar prior to going on hunger strike in October.
She highlighted her case and her plight following false accusations of being involved in the Northern Bank robbery in 2004.
The fact that she spent most of her working career overseas has complicated her pension application.
After running out of time to respond to requests for further information, she has to appeal a decision to refuse her claim.
Ms Nelson lost her career after she was arrested in connection with the 2004 robbery in which €39m was stolen from the Northern Bank in Belfast.
She worked as a teacher and diplomatic liaison officer and was linked to the robbery after being approached in Bulgaria to set up meetings with business people who might be able to invest large sums of Irish money there.
She has supported herself through a defamation award she received from a national newspaper which branded her an IRA gang member after her arrest.
She has supported herself through a defamation award she received from a national newspaper which branded her an IRA gang member after her arrest.
But she is now penniless, according to the Irish Examiner, which reported this story last week and also gave the full background to her story back in 2012.
She spent 56 days on hunger strike in 2007 in an ultimately successful attempt to get a letter from the then Garda commissioner formally declaring she was no longer under investigation — but it was several more years before her defamation case concluded.
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