I welcome to the House the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton, who is the new Tánaiste. I wish her well on her elevation. I remind Senators that a Senator may speak only once on Report Stage except the proposer of an amendment who may reply to the discussion on the amendment. On Report Stage, each amendment must be seconded. Amendment No. 1 in the names of Senators Cullinane, Reilly and Ó Clochartaigh has been ruled out of order.
Social Welfare and Pensions Bill 2014: Report and Final Stages
Amendment No. 1 not moved.
I move amendment No. 2:
In page 19, between lines 22 and 23, to insert the following:
"(1A) The Minister shall produce regulations governing the method by which the requirement in paragraph (a) of subsection (1) to remain habitually resident in order for any entitlement to subsist may be controlled or verified by the Department and these regulations must ensure that any such control method or review procedure adopted results in consistent decision-making and is not overly burdensome on those affected.",".
I welcome the Tánaiste and Minister for Social Protection to the House and I wish her well in her new role. I am sure she will have a very busy few hours and days ahead. We will not spend too much time on the Bill today as we spent a lot of time on Second and Committee Stages discussing all of the issues. We have retabled amendments because we were simply not happy with the responses we received. It is unfortunate amendment No. 1 was ruled out of order. A blunt instrument was used but we must accept the ruling of the Cathaoirleach.
Amendment No. 2 deals with the habitual residence condition. Deciding officers have the power to revisit the matter of whether the habitual residence condition continues to be satisfied in their review of claims and payments. The Department needs the ability to take action to ensure payments are made only to people entitled to them. We have expressed concerns to the Minister about the eventual outworking of this. Perhaps the legislation should include some safeguards. We would not like to see a situation where an unfair burden is placed on people to continually jump through hoops to prove they are habitually resident. Anybody who deals with people on a regular basis with regard to social welfare claims, or a raft of social welfare entitlements, is very familiar with the habitual residence condition.
That presents problems for people who were born here, moved to Britain and returned to this country. They now find themselves in difficulty because of that, nor would we like to see someone not leaving the State to visit relatives because they have a fear they will be cut off. That is an issue on which FLAC has lobbied all of us. We have spent some time on Committee Stage dealing with this and the Minister responded, but we are not satisfied that sufficient safeguards are in place in this area and for that reason we will be pressing the amendment.
Is there a seconder for the amendment?
Yes. I second the amendment.
I do not propose to accept the amendment. The five factors are derived from the European Union legislation, Article 11 of Regulation 987/2009, the European Court of Justice jurisprudence, the Swaddling case, and the Knock case, among others, and they are listed in section 246(4) of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005.
Guidelines on habitual residence have been published by my Department. They are freely available to everybody and are updated regularly to take account of developments nationally, at EU level and at the European Court of Justice. Full training is given on the use of the guidelines to all deciding officers and designated persons, with refresher training offered when the guidelines are updated.
If a person is dissatisfied with a decision given relating to habitual residence there are two avenues of appeal open to the person. He or she may seek a review of that decision, in other words, if information was omitted in regard to the application he or she can bring in the new information and ask for a review or he or she may appeal to the social welfare appeals office.
As the elements for the decision making process are already laid down in primary legislation, and there are adequate means of redress through the review and the appeal procedures, I remain of the view that it is unnecessary to provide secondary legislation as proposed by the amendment.
The Senator mentioned the FLAC submission. As he is probably aware, there has been a general welcome for the fact that the two year rule no longer applies but on the other hand, if people are claiming social welfare, we do not want to be paying it to people who have left the country for the periods concerned.
The Senator also mentioned Irish emigrants who may return home to Ireland. This is a very important point for all the Senators. The EU rules prevent discrimination on nationality grounds in regard to social security. As I believe the Senator is aware, it is not possible to exempt a particular category of Irish citizens such as returning emigrants from the habitual residence condition, HRC, without extending the same treatment to all EU nationals. However, the guidelines regarding determination of HRC specifically address the issue of returning emigrants. The guidelines state: "A person who had previously been habitually resident in the State and who moved to live and work in another country and then resumes his/her long-term residence in the State may be regarded as being habitually resident immediately on his/her return to the State." This was a much more vexed issue when I became Minister three and a half years ago and we worked to address the problems that were causing some difficulty. A number of Senators on both sides of the House raised specific cases with me at the time.
Arrangements were agreed with Safe Home Limited, a registered charity, to assist with the difficulty experienced by a minority of returning Irish emigrants in demonstrating their intention to live here permanently for the purposes of satisfying the HRC. To assist with this issue, Safe Home Ireland Limited has drawn up a check list of a range of documents that will help returning emigrants, whom we are happy to have return, show that they have returned to Ireland permanently.
Safe Home has also designed a declaration that will confirm where a customer is engaging with it as part of the repatriation process. It is intended that the declaration will be associated with any social assistance claim that a customer might make. This measure should help to expedite the decision making process in these cases as it can be accepted as proof that the customer has returned to reside in the State on a permanent basis.
If there are cases where the person still has residence outside the country and, for instance, he or she is simply returning home for a short period while retaining residence in another country, that is not somebody who is becoming habitually resident. However, we have used the arrangements with Safe Home Limited in particular to take account of older people coming back from, say, the United Kingdom, who might understandably be confused between the complexities of the two separate social security systems. To my knowledge, those arrangements are working very well unless Senator Cullinane is aware of cases to the contrary. It was an issue when I became Minister but as far as I am aware, we do not see anything like the volume of queries. Cases can arise from time to time where someone has not decided to do it permanently and, obviously, they have issues to address.
Do I get an opportunity to speak?
No. Only the proposer can come back in on Report Stage.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendment No. 3 in the names of Senators Cullinane, Reilly and Ó Clochartaigh is ruled out of order.
Amendment No. 3 not moved.
Bill reported without amendment and received for final consideration.
Question put: "That the Bill do now pass."
The Seanad divided: Tá, 28; Níl, 20.
Tá
- Bacik, Ivana.
- Brennan, Terry.
- Burke, Colm.
- Coghlan, Eamonn.
- Coghlan, Paul.
- Comiskey, Michael.
- Conway, Martin.
- Cummins, Maurice.
- D'Arcy, Jim.
- D'Arcy, Michael.
- Gilroy, John.
- Hayden, Aideen.
- Henry, Imelda.
- Higgins, Lorraine.
- Keane, Cáit.
- Kelly, John.
- Moloney, Marie.
- Moran, Mary.
- Mulcahy, Tony.
- Mullins, Michael.
- Noone, Catherine.
- O'Keeffe, Susan.
- O'Neill, Pat.
- Quinn, Feargal.
- Sheahan, Tom.
- van Turnhout, Jillian.
- Whelan, John.
- Zappone, Katherine.
Níl
- Barrett, Sean D.
- Byrne, Thomas.
- Crown, John.
- Cullinane, David.
- Healy Eames, Fidelma.
- Heffernan, James.
- Leyden, Terry.
- MacSharry, Marc.
- Mooney, Paschal.
- Mullen, Rónán.
- O'Brien, Darragh.
- O'Donovan, Denis.
- O'Sullivan, Ned.
- Ó Clochartaigh, Trevor.
- Ó Murchú, Labhrás.
- Power, Averil.
- Reilly, Kathryn.
- Walsh, Jim.
- White, Mary M.
- Wilson, Diarmuid.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Paul Coghlan and Aideen Hayden; Níl, Senators Ned O'Sullivan and Diarmuid Wilson.
Question declared carried.
Sitting suspended at 12.30 p.m. and resumed at 1.40 p.m.