Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 30 Jan 2001

Vol. 529 No. 1

Written Answers. - Social Welfare Benefits.

Liam Lawlor

Question:

876 Mr. Lawlor asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs if he will pursue the matter of reciprocal travel concessions (details supplied) for pensioners among EU member states; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30556/00]

Bernard J. Durkan

Question:

879 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the extent to which he will extend free travel to Irish pensioners living in the UK; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1042/01]

Brian O'Shea

Question:

892 Mr. O'Shea asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the proposals he has to grant free travel to elderly Irish people living in Britain when returning here for a holiday (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1375/01]

Brian O'Shea

Question:

897 Mr. O'Shea asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs his proposals to extend free travel to senior citizens living in the UK who are in receipt of an Irish old age contributory pension while they are visiting here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1533/01]

Denis Naughten

Question:

903 Mr. Naughten asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans he has to grant Irish citizens living in the UK free travel on public transport here on reaching 66 years of age; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1618/01]

Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs (Mr. D. Ahern)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 876, 879, 892, 897 and 903 together.

A variety of travel concessions are granted by most EU member states to retired pensioners. The scope and value of these concession schemes vary widely from country to country. CIE participate in the Rail-Europe senior scheme which gives concessions to those aged over 60.

The free travel scheme, as in the case of other social welfare schemes in Ireland, is available to all eligible persons, residing in the State, irrespective of nationality. It would not be possible to extend the scheme solely to Irish nationals resident in Britain as this may be contrary to EU law, which in many instances prohibits discrimination on grounds of nationality. This would mean, therefore, that if the scheme were to be extended on the lines suggested, it would have to be extended to all pensioners who are EU nationals coming to Ireland for temporary stays. This would, effectively, discriminate against all other Irish nationals resident in other countries throughout the world.

As the Deputies will be aware, the issue of extending the free travel scheme to EU pensioners was examined in the review of the free schemes which was published by the Policy Institute, Trinity College Dublin in April last year.

The review considered that the primary objective of the free travel scheme is to encourage older people and people with disabilities to remain independent and active within the community, thereby reducing the need for institutional care.

Accordingly, it concluded that extending the scheme to visitors would not be in keeping with the objective of the free travel scheme. It should also be noted that such an extension would have significant administrative and cost implications, of the order of £8 to £15 million, depending on the level of concession granted. The free travel scheme is based on spare capacity and CIE have already expressed their concern about capacity constraints on the public transport system. Therefore, it is unlikely they would grant any further extension of the scheme on the current concession basis.

Following the publication of the review, my officials re-examined the recommendation on EU travel and concurred with the conclusion in the review. It was also noted that the free travel scheme is but one element of a package of benefits provided to older people and people with dis abilities in Ireland. Governments in other member states provide varying packages of benefits, including higher cash benefits combined with reduced travel concessions.

Therefore, if the free travel scheme were extended to visitors coming to this country, they would benefit from whatever provision is made for travel in the package of benefits they receive from their country of residence and access to full free travel here. The effect of this would be to disadvantage Irish residents who cannot avail of free travel concessions in other EU countries, particularly when they visit relatives in the UK. Thus, they would be more disadvantaged in travel terms when they go abroad than the visitors who come here.

Accordingly, if Ireland were to unilaterally extend free travel to senior citizens visiting from abroad, it would be, in effect: discriminating against many other groups in our society who could receive great benefit from the scheme and could be considered to be in greater need; discriminating against those covered for free travel here, who are not eligible for free travel when they go abroad; and over compensating many of those receiving it whose package of benefits from their own country of residence would reflect local travel costs.

It is considered that any bilateral or multi-lateral arrangement would need to have the following elements at least: reciprocity – travel concessions for eligible visitors coming to Ireland would have to be reciprocated in the case of eligible people from Ireland going abroad; appropriate identification procedures – some internationally recognised "travel pass" would have to be introduced, issued by the country of main residence, for identification purposes; cost sharing – arrangements for sharing the costs between countries would have to be worked out.

Given the detailed arrangements required to set up such a scheme, which is outside the remit of my Department, it might be considered more appropriate for the EU who are examining a broad range of concessions for older people in the social, cultural and travel area.

Pat Carey

Question:

877 Mr. P. Carey asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the estimated cost of extending free travel to the child dependants of holders of free travel passes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30558/00]

Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs (Mr. D. Ahern)

The free travel scheme is available to all people living in the State aged 66 years, or over, and to all carers in receipt of carer's allowance and to carers of people in receipt of constant attendance or prescribed relative's allowance. It is also available to certain people with disabilities and people who are in receipt of certain welfare type payments.

A review of the free schemes was published in April last year by the Policy Institute, Trinity College Dublin. It considered that the main objective of the free travel scheme is to encourage older people and people with disabilities to remain independent and active in the community, thereby reducing the need for institutional care.

The review noted that the free travel pass is granted to the qualifying person and not to his or her children or spouse. While a spouse, regardless of age, does benefit from being able to accompany the passholder, he or she is not a qualified person and has no underlying claim until he or she reaches the qualifying age. The fact that a spouse can accompany the pass holder is a positive aspect of the scheme, which should encourage greater mobility. To extend the scheme further to include children, at an estimated cost of £3 million, would appear to be excessive in view of the numbers and cost of this scheme.

The review concluded that to extend the free travel scheme to such a group of people in their own right would be completely outside the objectives of the scheme and would discriminate against other groups such as single people, who cannot avail of the pass until reaching the qualifying age.

Gay Mitchell

Question:

878 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans he has to increase the death grant; when the last increase was granted; the further plans he has to link this grant to the consumer price index; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30563/00]

Pádraic McCormack

Question:

916 Mr. McCormack asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the reason the bereavement grant was denied to the widow of a person who did not have sufficient contributions; and his view on this is discriminating against this type of person. [1861/01]

Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs (Mr. D. Ahern)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 878 and 916 together.

The bereavement grant – formerly death grant – is a payment based on PRSI contributions, designed to assist families in dealing with death and funeral expenses. The grant is payable on the death of an insured person; the wife or husband of an insured person; the widow or widower of an insured person; a child under age 18, or under age 22 if in full-time education – where either parent or the person that the child normally lives with satisfies the PRSI contribution conditions; a contributory pensioner; the wife or husband of a contributory pensioner; the qualified adult of a contributory pensioner, including those who would be a qualified adult but are getting another social welfare payment, e.g. carer's allowance; a qualified child; an orphan in receipt of orphan's (contributory) allowance.

The bereavement grant was totally redesigned in 1999 to provide for a five-fold increase in the rate of payment from £100 to the current rate of £500. In addition, the payment was extended to include self-employed PRSI contributors and those covered by the modified rate of social insurance in addition to those paying full-rate PRSI contributions.

A person who has insufficient PRSI contributions will not qualify for a bereavement grant. However, there are other measures in place that are designed to assist people in the immediate aftermath of bereavement, for example, the payment of six weeks social welfare benefit following the death of certain social welfare recipients or their spouse. Budget 2000 provided for the introduction of a once-off payment of £1,000 payable to widows and widowers with dependent children who qualify for a widow(er's) contributory pension, one-parent family payment or a bereavement grant.

In addition, under the supplementary welfare allowance, a health board may make a single payment to help meet essential, once-off exceptional expenditure, which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of his/her weekly income. These payments, known as exceptional needs payments, may be made towards funeral expenses where it is established that there is an inability to meet the costs by the family concerned.

Any further developments in these arrangements would have expenditure implications and could only be considered in the context of future budgets and available resources.

Question No. 879 answered with Question No. 876.