Ms Dearbháil Nic Giolla Mhicíl:

I thank the Chairman. I will start with the last question and work back through them. The issue with delays in getting records is not something we have any control over, unfortunately. We simply do not know whether the delays will be worse after Brexit. We hope not. As the Minister said, when we were drafting the convention we had very good co-operation with our UK counterparts and we hope that will continue after Brexit. I expect that it will. All I can tell the committee is that we hope there will not be any further delays. We will not know until things start to operate in the new environment. We will see how things work out then.

The all-Ireland free travel scheme is a non-statutory scheme. There are no legislative provisions for it as it is, which is why there is nothing in the Bill about it. The main issue concerns the contract with Translink to produce the cards for the all-Ireland free travel scheme. Our colleagues have worked with it in order to update the contract to ensure it is GDPR compliant. Again, the issue is the UK being a third country after Brexit. That is in hand but no legislation is required.

When we started the work on Brexit preparations, it was obvious that not very much was written down about the common travel area although it had existed since 1924. There are two key documents. The first is an overall common travel area agreement that was signed in May of last year between the UK and Ireland. It set out the range of issues that the common travel area covers, including our social welfare issues as well as health, education and the ability to move and work between the two jurisdictions. The convention on social security deals specifically with the social welfare payments which were covered under the EU regulations and which are now covered under the new convention.

As the Chairman said, there was a provision regarding the habitual residence test in the legislation at one stage. I understand it provided that a person who lived within the common travel area for three years would be regarded as habitually resident. That was changed a number of years ago. Nothing we are doing now changes the rules regarding the habitual residence condition. It will continue to operate as it does at the moment.

I am not sure we have figures on the number of UK pensioners living in Ireland who are in receipt of top-ups. We can certainly get that information and send it to the committee.

As the Chairman said, the convention lists specific schemes and they are the schemes that are covered. The convention was drafted and passed through the legislative processes of the two countries in time to be ready for the original Brexit date of 29 March last year. As the Chairman said, some new schemes have been introduced since that time. We always knew that was a possibility and likewise we knew the UK might introduce new schemes over the course of the agreement. It was our intention to keep the agreement up to date to include any new schemes that come online.