The special grant of £500 in respect of twins is payable to a person who, in accordance with the relevant domestic legal provisions, is a qualified person for child benefit purposes, i.e. the person with whom a qualified child normally resides. A qualified child is defined to mean a child who is under the age of 16, or aged between 16 and 19 if in full-time education or if physically or mentally disabled and who is ordinarily resident in the State and not detained in reformatory, industrial school or legal custody.
The EU regulations on social security provide for co-ordination between the social security systems of the various member states. The primary purpose of these regulations is to ensure that people who have lived and worked in more than one country are adequately covered for social protection purposes. The regulations also provide clarity as to which country's national legislation applies — a basic principle is to ensure that the legislation of only one member state will apply at any time.