Vol. 413 No. 3
12 Proinsias De Rossa asked the Minister for Social Welfare if the Government's policy of interpreting EC regulations to cover Irish social insurance payment and child benefit will be reviewed with a view to extending it to cover all social welfare schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The social security rights of persons who move within the member states of the European Community are protected by EC Regulation 1408/71. Article 5 of that regulation provides that the regulation does not apply to social assistance. The schemes which come within the scope of the regulations are social insurance based schemes and child benefit which is a universal benefit available to all children resident in the State. The regulation does not apply to social assistance schemes.
The question of extending the scope of Regulation 1408/71 to cover non-contributory benefits and the conditions under which this might be done are at present the subject of a proposal to the Council of Ministers by the EC Commission. This proposal is due to be discussed by the Council shortly and the question of extending the scope of the regulation to other social welfare schemes will be considered in the light of those discussions.
Earlier we heard about the difficulties and delays of up to six months in dealing with applicants from England. Will the Minister outline how he proposes to advertise the EC regulations, given that we have to depend in the main on explanatory leaflets produced by FLAC? Does the Minister agree that he will have to organise a section of the Department to deal with the social security rights of persons from other member states, because as and from 1992 the staff will have to deal with Greek, Italian, Flemish, Portuguese and Spanish nationals? Will the Minister produce explanatory leaflets that will help people claim their social security rights under the EC regulations? Will he further establish a specific section to assist people to make legitimate claims?
The Department have already published a leaflet, Social Security Rights in the EC, and I would be pleased to send a copy of this to the Deputy. As I said earlier in reply to other questions, in the light of the preparation of new material and information leaflets, I will have this examined to see if there are ways we can put further information at the disposal of the public that will assist them in dealing speedily and effectively with their claim.
