Ms Danielle McLaughlin:

For those who are not familiar with Crosscare Migrant Project, we are funded by the emigrant support programme in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and provide an information and advocacy service that supports Irish citizens who are leaving and returning home.

More than 105,000 Irish emigrants have returned home since 2014 and various barriers have been identified to their transition. We have practical experience and evidential research that document some of these. In May, we published a report entitled A Hundred Thousand Welcomes?, outlining the issues with access to social protection for returning emigrants, while in March we made a submission to the Department of Justice and Equality on access to residency permission for returning Irish emigrant families with non-EEA members. Our presentation concerns these two key areas. I will discuss access to social protection and my colleague, Richard King, will discuss residency permission for non-EU family members.

One of the main barriers we have identified for returning emigrants who are in vulnerable situations is the issue of access to social protection for those who need assistance and support on return. Central to this is the habitual residence condition, HRC, which is one of the biggest concerns for returning emigrants. Our service provides an information and advocacy service to enable people emigrating and returning, especially individuals in vulnerable circumstances, to make informed choices and access their rights.

Following several years of issues with the HRC, we successfully advocated for changes to the HRC guidelines which adopted specific recognition of returning migrants in 2010. The situation improved markedly for more than eight years but a decade later, it is evident that these issues with the HRC are adversely affecting people returning to live in Ireland today. Over the past few years, we have noted a growing trend for some returning emigrants who have been denied access to social welfare payments in Ireland. Most of these cases were refused based on HRC, where returning emigrants are assessed on their evidence of resuming their residence in Ireland.

Our report A Hundred Thousand Welcomes? outlines the need to address the inconsistencies in decision-making and the comprehension of the HRC by returned emigrants, with the help of the recommendations to the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. These recommendations are outlined in the document circulated to the members for this meeting.

In the majority of the cases we deal with, the individuals experience very vulnerable situations such as homelessness or risk of homelessness, with no income or support networks. In addition, some have children or further health and social care support needs. In 2017, we dealt with 280 queries and worked directly on 18 cases of HRC-based disallowed claims. We submitted 12 cases to the social welfare appeals office and every case was successfully overturned. Two thirds of these cases came from dual citizens who were either born in Ireland to non-Irish parents or who naturalised as adults, some of whom were forced to return in crisis from conflict zones such as Libya and Sudan on the advice of Irish consular authorities. Cases took from between five and nine months on average, and these long delays and stress had a significant adverse impact on the welfare of these individuals and families.

Respondents to our online survey told us they felt the process was intimidating, demeaning, humiliating and that they were made to feel guilty. Irish emigrant support organisations abroad expressed the misconceptions among Irish emigrants about their rights and entitlements. They perceive the lack of information and misconceptions in regard to HRC to actively deter emigrants from returning to Ireland on the presumption that they may not be able to access a safety net of income while they are re-establishing employment in Ireland.

I hand over to Mr. Richard King to continue the Crosscare presentation.