Vol. 515 No. 4
20 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs the plans, if any, he has to extend the bilateral arrangements in respect of payment of pensions or other entitlements to countries other than those in respect of which these agreements exist; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6208/00]
Ireland has concluded bilateral social security agreements with Austria, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the USA and Switzerland. Ireland also entered into a bilateral understanding with Quebec on 1 October 1994. These agreements have been put into operation. The main purpose of these agreements is to protect the social security pension rights of workers who have acquired these rights while working in Ireland and the other countries to which the agreements apply. Similar protection of pension and other social security rights is afforded workers who have worked in Ireland and the other 14 EU member states by the EU regulations on social security. These also apply to the member states of the European Economic Area – Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Their application is also likely to be extended to other European countries in the coming years in the context of the enlargement of the EU or otherwise.
Consideration will continue to be given to concluding further bilateral agreements with individual countries where this is considered warranted by the number of persons who have been working in Ireland and the other country and where there is no immediate prospect of that country coming within the scope of comparable EU arrangements. In line with this policy, preliminary negotiations on a bilateral social security agreement have commenced with the authorities of the Republic of Korea and a draft text furnished by the Korean authorities is currently being examined by my Department.
I have no plans at present to extend these agreements to other countries.
In the context of the ongoing review in relation to extending bilateral agreements with other countries, will the Minister also undertake a revision of the procedures under which claims are dealt with? They are extremely long drawn out on both sides. It should be possible with modern technology to set up an arrangement that would be reasonably fast and secure a fast response for the citizen.
I agree with the Deputy. I encountered one such case in my constituency which involved an EU country. It was a claim for sickness benefit or a related payment. The problem in these cases is that one must rely on the medical examination in the other country and sometimes that can be difficult. In the country in this case, which I would have considered a progressive country, it was much slower than the process here. I agree with the Deputy's comments and we will take his suggestion into account.
