Written Answers. - Free Travel Scheme.
Ivan Yates
Ceist:
333
Mr. Yates
asked the
Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs
his proposals to amend the free travel scheme to Irish pensioners living in Britain when returning home; if he will consider making provision for such cases in view of the special circumstances of such Irish immigrants.
[29633/00]
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 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.
As the Deputy 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, last April. 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 disabilities 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 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 and cost shar ing – 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 which is examining a broad range of concessions for older people in the social, cultural and travel area.
